Animal assisted therapy effects on quality of life of elderly with dementia

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Felipe do Cabo
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Britto, Alan Messala de Aguiar, Silva, Lenilce Pereira de Sousa da, Machado, Daniel Aragão, Fakoury, Max Kopti, Santos, Katerine Moraes dos, Ayres, Andréia Rodrigues Gonçalves
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/30864
• topic: Aged; Dementia; Animal Assisted; Quality of life.; Anciano; Demencia; Terapia asistida por animales; Calidad de vida.; Idoso; Demência; Terapia Assistida por Animais; Qualidade de vida.

Objective: to describe the findings of publications, addressing aspects related to changes in quality of life of geriatric patients with demential syndrome that participated in Animal Assisted Therapy (TAA) applied by health professionals. Method: integrative literature review in Biblioteca Virtual de Saúde (BVS) of indexed publications from 2015 to 2020. The search was carried out from July to August 2020 using ‘aged’, ‘dementia’, ‘animal assisted therapy’ and ‘quality of life’ as keywords with the boolean operator AND. We found 15 articles of which six composed final sample after inclusion and exclusion criteria assessment. The papers were analyzed based on content analysis proposed by Bardin. Results: Five chosen manuscripts showed European experiences in TAA employment, and one is a literature review performed by an Italian group. After analysis and synthesis of the recorded data, the registration units were grouped in five categories based on physical, psychological, emotional and social quality of life domains. Categories were named: TAA improves physical aspects, TAA improves emotional aspects, TAA improves psychological/mental aspects, TAA improves social aspects and TAA does not impact or negatively impacts quality of life. Conclusion: TAA improved the quality of life of geriatric patients with demential syndrome and can be used as an alternative therapy for this population.