Animal-assisted Interventions in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis
Keywords:
animal-assisted interventions, animal-assisted therapy, hippotherapy, multiple sclerosis, rehabilitationAbstract
Multiple sclerosis is a demyelinating disease affecting mainly young adults and characterized by the presentation of motor, sensitive, visual and cognitive symptoms (among others), which alter different areas of the affected patients´ lives. Its treatment aims to restrain the functional deterioration of the patient and comprises an interdisciplinary approach including pharmacological therapeutics and neurorehabilitation. Animal-assisted interventions have raised in the last decades as complementary approaches with promising results in patients with neurological diseases, although the research on their efficacy in multiple sclerosis is scarce. A review of the empiric studies that included animal-assisted interventions in persons with multiple sclerosis was performed. Six studies were found, most of them focused on hippotherapy. These investigations highlighted improvement in the participants on the motor area, mainly related to balance and gait speed. Moreover, a beneficial effect on the quality of life of these people was recognize. Although some positive results in the employment of this sort of therapies in persons with multiple sclerosis were found, there are few investigations and more thorough studies are needed. Finally, we suggest that investigations that assess interventions with dogs should be conducted and their effect on cognitive function evaluated.
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