Innovation in Aging

Monday, September 16, 2024

"Loneliness is linked to significant health threats and is potentially more dangerous than obesity; it affects as many as 29% of noninstitutionalized older adults... Emerging evidence suggests that companion animals provide a number of health and well-being benefits and that interacting with a trained therapy dog may reduce loneliness."

Gee, N. R., Townsend, T., Friedmann, E., Barker, S., Mueller, M. (2024). A pilot randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of a therapy dog intervention on loneliness in hospitalized older adults. Innovation in Aging, 8(11). https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igae085

Anthrozoös

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

"Ornamental fishes carry a much lower risk than other companion animals and may be a suitable alternative in situations where other animals would introduce too great a risk (e.g., allergy, accidental injury). The aim of this study was to investigate whether watching an aquarium during the working day influenced employee wellbeing through the reduction of stress and improvements in stress-related outcomes."

Clements, H., Valentin, S., Jenkins, N., Rankin, J., Gee, N. R., Snellgrove, D., & Sloman, K. A. (2024). Do Workplace Fish Tanks Influence Employee Wellbeing and Cognitive Performance? An Embedded Mixed-Methods Study. Anthrozoös, 37(3), 459–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2024.2303227

Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics

Saturday, September 9, 2023

"As community-engaged research (CER) methods evolve, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) must adapt policies to facilitate CER research. This paper describes a novel collaboration between hospital-based therapy dog volunteer teams (CERs), academic faculty, and an IRB."

Townsend, L., Towsley, N., & Gee, N.R. (2023, September 3). "Dogs on Call": A community-engaged human subjects training with hospital based therapy dog teams. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 18(5), 363-371. https://doi.org/10.1177/15562646231191962

Scientific Reports

Thursday, September 7, 2023

"Pet ownership has been associated with reduced deterioration in physical health as older adults age; little research focused on deterioration in cognitive function. We examine the relationship of pet, dog, cat ownership, and dog walking to changes in cognitive function among 637 generally healthy community-dwelling older adults (185 pet owners) aged 50–100 years (M = 68.3, SD = 9.6) within the BLSA."

Friedmann, E., Gee, N. R., Simonsick, E. M., Kitner-Triolo, M. H., Resnick, B., Adesanya, I., Koodaly, L., & Gurlu, M. (2023). Pet ownership and maintenance of cognitive function in communityresiding older adults: Evidence from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). Scientific Reports, 13(1), 14738. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41813-y

Psychiatric News

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

"Accumulating evidence demonstrates the importance of companion animals in the lives of humans. This article discusses the varied ways those animals may participate in the treatment of mental illness."

Gee, N. R., Townsend, L., Findling, R. L. (2023). How companion animals can participate in treatment of mental illness.  Psychiatric News, 58(9), 23-26. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2023.09.9.35