OBJECTIVES To determine whether animal-assisted therapy is effective in the rehabilitation of middle-aged schizophrenic patients living in a social institution. DESIGN A before and after study with nine-month treatment period. SETTING Social institute for psychiatric patients. SUBJECTS Seven schizophrenic patients living in the social institute. INTERVENTIONS Weekly sessions of animal-a...

Animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic nursing intervention that brings animals together with persons with physical and/or emotional needs as a way of meeting those needs. It is based on the growing knowledge of benefits that animals provide to the sick, elderly, and isolated. A model for a responsible and outcome-oriented program in animal-assisted therapy in acute care settings is described...

objective: to determine the effect of group cognitive behavior therapy (cbt) on psychological hardiness and coping strategies of infertile women undergoing assisted reproductive therapy (art). methods: two groups of infertile women who received art consisted of experimental group (15 females) and control group (16 females) were compared. the participants in experimental group received 15 sessio...

The effects of a therapeutic recreation intervention using animal-assisted therapy (AAT) on the agitated behaviors and social interactions of older adults with dementia were examined using the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory and the Animal-Assisted Therapy Flow Sheet. In a pilot study, 15 nursing home residents with dementia participated in a daily AAT intervention for three weeks. Results ...

Some persons argue that the routine addition of antibiotics to animal feed will help alleviate protein undernutrition in developing countries by increasing meat production. In contrast, we estimate that, if all routine antibiotic use in animal feed were ceased, there would be negligible effects in these countries. Poultry and pork production are unlikely to decrease by more than 2%. Average dai...

Systematic reviews are currently favored methods of evaluating research in order to reach conclusions regarding medical practice. The need for such reviews is necessitated by the fact that no research is perfect and experts are prone to bias. By combining many studies that fulfill specific criteria, one hopes that the strengths can be multiplied and thus reliable conclusions attained. Potential...