Health benefits of pets
According to data collected from CDC, owning a pet includes health benefits and can decrease blood pressure, cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, feelings of loneliness, anxiety and symptoms of PTSD and increase opportunities for exercise and more opportunities to socialize. Pets can be good friends and can help the elderly feel less lonely by giving them companionship.
The studies show that pets can also help improve mental health. Pets reduce stress of their owners and help them to manage their feelings.
Animal-assisted interventions–pet therapy
“There have been studies that show that animal assisted intervention has many health benefits such as physical and mental health benefits. It can help to reduce stress, pain and anxiety.”
Pets also have basic needs and pet owners should take care of their needs. But what about the people with dementia, disorders or older people? If someone has Alzheimer's disease they may forget to take the animal outside for walks or change their litter boxes. This group of people can't take care of pet, but can benefit from them. But how?
The answer is robotic pets.
Robotic pets
Robotic Pets can be very advantageous for people who can't have a real pet. “There have been studies that show that robots can be considered as serious toys”. This study shows that robotic pet can activate social and emotional experiences of the elderly by increasing their wellbeing.” Especially during covid-19 they were used more and more for isolated elderly.
Isolated elderly during the pandemic in nursing homes or those who lived alone in their homes could have a robotic pet and didn’t feel alone.
Paro is one of those robotic pets. According to data collected from robots.ieee.org, Paro is a robotic baby seal that can be used as a therapy pet in nursing homes. Paro cries to attract attention and it can respond to its name.
Joy For All companion robotic pets are designed especially for older adults in nursing homes. The Joy For All brand offers different lines of robotic pets such as robotic cats and dogs. Older adults can interact with the Joy For All companion robotic dogs and cats and hug them whenever they want. The Joy For All companion robotic dogs bark back like real dogs.
