Introduction: Due to the increase in the number of elderly in modern society we are faced with a growing population of people suffering from cognitive impairment and dementia. Alongside standard pharmacological therapies to battle the symptoms of dementia, animal assisted therapy and animal assisted activities are also used. Purpose: The purpose of this diploma work is to establish whether animal assisted therapy or animal assisted activities have a positive effect on the functioning of people with dementia. Methods: A descriptive method was used by reviewing the available professional literature in the English language. Articles published between January of 2014 and June of 2019 were included. The articles, published in the English language, were searched for on the World Wide Web using the PubMed and CINAHL databases. To answer our research questions we included 16 articles obtained during the review, their quality assessed by the CASP tool. Results: In the reviewed articles they established that animal assisted therapy and animal assisted activities help in decreasing agitated and aggressive behavior. The level of depression decreased and the social interaction of people with dementia improved in the sense of decreased behavioral problems during the day and improved quality of their social interactions. Concerning the effects of animal assisted therapy/activities on cognitive functioning the results were contradictory. In two articles the cognitive function was not affected while in three articles an improvement was reported. The quality of life of people with dementia increased in the majority of reviewed articles. The positive influence attributed to animal assisted therapy/activities was due to the improvement of physical activities such as better balance control and increased independence in basic life activities. By using robotic pets instead of live ones similar positive effects were reported. Discussion and conclusion: According to the results of the research, animal assisted activities and therapy present us with great therapeutic potential, especially when it comes to decreasing agitation and restlessness in people with dementia and as such could become a standard complementary or even alternative to pharmacological treatments. The knowledge that robotic pet therapy has a similar effect as therapy with live pets could further this treatment option. However more research is needed in the area of animal assisted therapy/activities since the sample of participants of the reviewed articles was mostly relatively low.
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