"Having a non-judgmental confidant can serve to buffer the effects of stress on both physical and psychological health outcomes," explains Nancy Gee, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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.

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.

Nancy Gee, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University, has been researching this topic for more than two decades. She tells Yahoo Life one study shows, “Just five minutes of interacting with a dog, for a stressed healthcare worker, can decrease their cortisol to the same level as if they had sat alone in a quiet room for 15 minutes.”

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.