[Treatment dogs have attracted attention as an adjuvant therapy for Alzheimer's disease, but there are still problems such as scarcity and difficulty in training]
Therapy dog brings comfort to the elderly and fights forgetting
For the first time, biubiu is performing "Walking Around the Legs" for the elderly.
Cute therapy dog at work.
Jin Pei (second from left) took biubiu to participate in therapy dog training.
A10-A11 version picture / Photo courtesy of the interviewee
As soon as the familiar trolley appeared, Yoyo knew that she was going to "work".
On weekdays, this Bichon Bichon is always lazy, does not play with toys, and hangs its small head down on its owner after eating.
But as soon as she saw the cart, Yoyo would get up slowly, stretch, jump into the cart, and wait for the cart to take it to the "work" place.
As one of only 150 therapy dogs in China, Yoyo is very diligent.
It will perform "bye bye" to different groups of people on a regular basis - its two paws are put together, swinging up and down, like a human "knocking", bringing joy and comfort to people, and an important service object is people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Elderly man with heimer's disease.
According to the "China Alzheimer's Disease Report 2021", in 2021, the number of existing patients in the world will exceed 51 million, and the number of patients in China will exceed 13 million, accounting for about 25.5% of the global number.
There is no effective treatment for this condition so far.
But in recent years, therapy dogs have begun to receive attention as an adjuvant therapy.
Therapy dogs can understand passwords, are docile and unusual, are not afraid of complex environments, can accept almost anyone's touch, hug, and some have talent.
They breathe life into the lives of sick elderly people, leave happy moments in their dwindling memories, and even bring back memories of the past.
But domestically, there is still a long way to go to serve the elderly with Alzheimer's disease through therapy dogs.
The scarcity of therapy dogs, the difficulty of training, and the difficulty of long-term feeding in nursing homes are all problems that need to be solved urgently.
On this road, there are public welfare volunteer teams who train therapy dogs and enter nursing homes to serve the elderly. There are elderly people in their seventies who train stray dogs as therapy dogs. People who are enthusiastic about this are fighting diseases in their own way. Fight against forgetting.
tie down
Every time she volunteers at a nursing home, Yoyo's owner, Chen Ying, thinks of her mother who passed away 6 years ago.
At that time, the mother, who was over eighty years old, was not very clear, and her memory was often deviated.
She turned her head and forgot what had just happened and the medicine she had taken.
The same sentence, she will repeatedly ask, keep saying.
She often calls out her family's names in a mess, mistaking one for that.
But "Fifi" is the only exception.
Feifei is a puppy raised in the family. In the last few years of her life, her mother's connection with everyone was slowly fading due to cognitive impairment, but she was the only one who became intimate with Feifei.
"Where's Feifei? What is Feifei doing?" Every ten minutes, the mother raised her head and looked around while calling the puppy's name.
"Feifei, do you want to eat? Are you hungry?" She talked to Feifei back and forth, holding the food and reaching out to feed it.
Feifei also seemed to be sensitive to the change. As soon as her mother sat on the sofa, it came over and lay beside her.
This made Chen Ying feel incredible.
Later, by chance, she heard about the PFH therapy dog program (Paw for Heal) and learned about animal-assisted therapy, and then she realized that animals can provide great energy for humans psychologically and emotionally.
The Chinese Journal of Mental Health, sponsored by the Chinese Mental Health Association, published a review on animal-assisted therapy in 2006.
In this paper, animal-assisted therapy is the use of certain animals that meet special conditions as a means of treatment under the guidance and participation of experts in the field of health or social services.
The authors mentioned that a large number of studies have shown that animals have a positive effect on human physical and mental health, and animal-assisted therapy is very effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, behavioral disorders, Alzheimer's disease and other chronic mental diseases.
Therapy dogs are a type of animal-assisted therapy.
In China, the PFH therapy dog project was founded by pet behavior expert Wu Qi in 2012. Currently, it has served more than 100,000 people. It has successively established volunteer teams of therapy dogs in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu and other cities to provide free treatment for autism. Provide services to different groups such as children, the elderly with Alzheimer's disease, depression, disabilities, children with leukemia, high-risk and high-pressure occupations, and ordinary children and adolescents.
Her mother's experience made Chen Ying decide to join the therapy dog volunteer team.
However, because Feifei had congenital tracheal collapse and did not meet the requirements of a therapy dog, the pet dog Yoyo came to the house in the year of her mother's death.
Chen Ying found that Yoyo has good physical fitness, good personality, high degree of socialization, and is not afraid of people, so he is very suitable for training as a therapy dog.
After training, Yoyo took up the job for the first time.
In a local nursing home, Yoyo and the old people had a lot of fun, the scene was full of laughter, but Chen Ying was in tears.
The old people sat there like mothers on the sofa in the living room.
Each activity is only a few hours, but Chen Ying feels that she is tied to the elderly.
In 2019, Chen Ying met an old grandma during a volunteer service for a nursing home.
The old man also had a puppy at home, but now that she is old and has cognitive impairment, she has never seen her puppy since she came to live in a nursing home.
"Can I give you a hug?" Seeing the white curly-haired, bright-eyed Youyou stretched out her upper limbs and bowed in front of her, the grandma couldn't close her mouth with laughter.
She took Chen Ying and kept talking about her puppy, her tone was full of regret.
It has been a few months since she went to this nursing home for the second time. Chen Ying noticed that the old man was in a wheelchair and his body seemed to be much worse than before, but she was still enthusiastic. As soon as she saw Yoyo, she immediately called it out. name.
The third time she went, Chen Ying didn't see the grandmother, and she felt very sad.
This made Chen Ying more firm in her original intention: "To bring help and happiness to these special elderly people with the strength within your ability."
expect
Wu Qi has organized hundreds of therapy dog services for the elderly, a large number of which are elderly people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease.
These elderly people are usually reluctant to participate in other activities, but when they learned that there were dogs, some elderly people even arrived at the event venue half an hour in advance, hoping to spend more time with the therapy dogs.
Every time, the old people will ask expectantly: "Is Langlang (the name of the therapy dog) here? Is Xiaodou (the name of the therapy dog) here?" Ge asked the nurses, but during the activity, the old man was extremely gentle, gently stroking the therapy dog in front of him, "It's like a different person."
In volunteer Han Li's experience, no elderly person has ever roughed up her therapy dog, Pippi.
Some elderly people are still very vigorous, and can hold a puppy like a baby, walk, sit, and take pictures with Pippi on their knees.
In order to prevent Pippi from slipping down, the old man also stood on tiptoe, trying to keep his thighs as level as possible.
Once, Han Li met a grizzled old grandmother, sitting in a wheelchair, without much expression and difficulty in speaking.
But when the activity was coming to an end, the old grandmother suddenly took Han Li's hand and nodded at her, sluggishly like ringing a bell.
It was a pair of thin hands, with age spots and bulging blood vessels under the skin.
Hold it like you are petting a tree.
"It's both uncomfortable and moving." Han Li said, the uncomfortable is not being able to accompany them often, and the moving is what can really be done for them.
She noticed that the old grandmother's eyelids drooped with age and covered her eyes.
Han Li couldn't see her eyes clearly, but she could feel that she was happy for their arrival.
In promoting the communication between the elderly and the elderly, allowing the elderly to improve their attention and language skills, so that the elderly can have good memories, leave happy memories, and build good expectations for the future. This is also Wu Qi's hope that through the therapy dog project goals achieved.
"The activity itself should be pleasant. We hope the elderly can remember the names of the volunteers and the therapy dogs as much as possible. We will also give the elderly a group photo with the therapy dogs, so as to encourage the elderly to remember the happy emotions on this day. Some elderly people used to raise There will be some good memories after passing the dog, and through our activities, the memories may re-emerge." Wu Qi explained.
Volunteer Jin Pei remembered that once, she brought a therapy dog to a nursing home to volunteer.
The old man said that when he was a child, he also had a German Shepherd at home, and he rode around on the dog.
"This is really beautiful." Kim Pei said.
At the end of each event, Wu Qi would always ask, "Would you like to see you next time? When do you want us to come?" Many old people wish they would go every day, but they would smile and shake their heads, "You young people still want to come. Work, just come once a month.”
cream of the crop
Becoming a therapy dog can be said to be one in a hundred.
They should not only have good character, but also have good pressure resistance and obedience.
Unlike training ordinary family pets and working dogs, therapy dogs need to undergo socialization training, obedience training, desensitization training and interaction training according to international standards.
"A therapy dog must not only listen to the owner, but also be friendly to strangers, which is more difficult to train." Wu Qi explained that a qualified therapy dog must remain friendly in the face of different environments, just like an elegant Gentleman, enthusiastic but keep a restrained closeness - strangers pulling its hair, tail, and no aggressive behavior; for the basic commands of "sit, lie, stand, wait", you must be proficient in it, and you must be able to follow it. Strangers complete interactive content such as shaking hands, picking up things, and jumping equipment obstacles.
For this reason, when training, Wu Qi often takes the dogs to the noisy outdoors, so that they are familiar with the noise of the road and the running of children.
"Each dog has a different personality, and the training difficulty and investment time will also be different. The training period is generally six months to one year." Wu Qi introduced.
The therapy dog must judge the owner's intention from the commands and gestures, and complete the action smoothly.
The action is not difficult, the key is to repeat it many times a day, so that the therapy dog can form a conditioned reflex, and this is a relatively long process.
The first movement the therapy dog "biubiu" (pet name) learns is "sitting."
In order to consolidate the training, Jin Pei, the owner of biubiu, takes it to practice once a day in the morning, noon and evening, for 10-15 minutes each time.
If biubiu gets it right, she gets a small snack, or plays with it for a while, as a reward.
"It can't be boring," Kim Pei said.
biubiu is docile, but occasionally stubborn.
Sometimes after training for a long time, it can understand, but it just doesn't do the action.
Jin Pei does not insist, she will let biubiu relax for a while, go to play, and continue to practice after having a good time. A movement is often practiced for a month or two.
The most complex "walk around the legs", it was practiced for a year, throughout the training cycle.
And just like that, a year later, the biubiu is an excellent therapy dog.
Not all dogs that are trained can become therapy dogs, and they go through rigorous screening and testing.
At first, Wu Qi spent half a year training 50 dogs, but in the end less than half of them passed the test.
According to Wu Qi's incomplete statistics, so far, thousands of dogs have taken the test, but there are only more than 150 therapy dogs registered with him in the whole country.
Pippi, who is 4 years old this year, is also one of them.
It is usually enthusiastic. It drives geese on the grassland, rolls in the snow, and likes to rub people to beg for "touch", forcing others to perform talents, but when it comes to "work" time, it becomes quiet and stable, Never "drop the chain" because of too much excitement.
The most astonishing thing is that it has an insight and sense of proportion that comes from nowhere, discerning who likes you and who doesn't.
In the face of people who are afraid of dogs, it just "bye bye" a few steps away, or obey the owner's instructions to stand up and lie down.
In the face of those who like it, it will show unreserved trust, let it be touched and embraced.
challenge
Seven or eight years ago, Wu Qi first entered a nursing facility to provide therapy dog services for the elderly.
Until then, his clients were only autistic children.
The elderly and children are very different. In Wu Qi's opinion, children are more active and active. In contrast, the elderly have weaker mobility. Most of the time, they can only sit in place and cannot bend down to interact with the therapy dog. .
For this reason, Wu Qi and the volunteers must always pay attention to the movements and eyes of the elderly, and sometimes speak loudly in the ears of the elderly so that the elderly can hear them clearly.
"We must remain enthusiastic, but also be particularly vigilant." Sometimes, Wu Qi encounters a very small number of grumpy old people and kicks the treatment dog at work. He must solve it in time and will not force those old people to accept the treatment dog. .
At the same time, he also found that the implementation of animal-assisted therapy in elderly care institutions still faces many difficulties.
"Generally speaking, in an event, the ratio of the number of dogs to the elderly is best to be 1:2 or 1:3, but many times, the elderly care institutions want more elderly people to participate. In one case, the number of elderly people was even as high as 50 people." Wu Qi said that once there are too many people and the scene is mixed, it will be difficult for the elderly to concentrate, and there is no way to have more contact time with the therapy dog, and the effect will be weakened.
"We also need to protect the welfare of dogs. They change positions back and forth, quickly accept different people, and have to distinguish the voices of volunteers and the voices of the elderly. With so many people reaching out, the dogs are easily confused." These all bring higher challenges to Wu Qi's work.
Wu Qi can understand.
At present, it is difficult for the elderly care institutions he is in contact with to keep therapy dogs on the grounds for a long time.
"The first training of a therapy dog is not done once and for all." Wu Qi introduced that in order to maintain its ability, it must be regularly trained by professionals, and it is difficult for institutions to invest costs to afford professionals who train therapy dogs.
Therefore, at present, if the elderly care institutions want to increase animal-assisted treatment, they still need to rely on Wu Qi's team to provide services on a regular basis.
When negotiating services with the elderly care institution, Wu Qi will also consider whether the other party has suitable personnel and venues to provide – therapy dogs need enough venues to complete the performance, and whether the elderly and their families will worry about the virus carrying the therapy dogs.
In order to provide better services, Li Xin, the event planning director of Fosun Castle Beijing Xiangshan Senior Apartment, also proposed to create an animal-assisted therapy scale based on expert advice to make the process and effect evaluation evidence-based.
"We will formulate a process around the elderly's computing ability, executive ability, language expression ability, comprehensive ability and other dimensions. The therapy dog service team can interact with the elderly according to the scale process." Li Xin said that the scale has now taken shape. , will be put into use as soon as possible.
against forgetting
The therapy dog biubiu has its own social media account, which is opened by its owner Jin Pei, and receives many private messages every day, the most of which is to ask Jin Pei: "I have such a (Alzheimer's disease) patient in my family, Can we get such a dog?" She always replied helplessly: "I'm sorry, now we are all group activities."
"The demand for therapy dogs is very strong right now, but the number is too small," Kim Pei said.
Wu Qi knew better than Jin Pei what the gap meant.
"There are currently tens of millions of pet dogs in China, and it is actually very easy to reach tens of thousands of therapy dogs. We only have more than 100 therapy dogs, and one therapy dog can serve 1,000 people a year, but my country now has 1,000 There are more than 10,000 patients with Alzheimer's disease." Wu Qi believes that the main reason is that the public has too little understanding of animal-assisted treatment and treatment dogs.
"Many people don't know the existence of 'therapy dogs', and many people still stay in the concept that dogs will bite people." Wu Qi said, "We advocate civilized and scientific pet raising, and the training of therapy dogs will help dogs to be more healthy. Good integration into the community; therapy dogs have no requirements for dog breeds, although it is 'working', it is playing games and interacting, which is not bad for dogs."
To this end, Wu Qi has been trying to do a good job in the popularization of therapy dogs, opening a self-media account, participating in programs, and opening online services for patients, so that more people can learn about and experience therapy dogs.
The 74-year-old Jin Pei is also doing her own efforts.
She first heard of "therapy dogs" more than a decade ago.
At that time, she opened a "pet clothing store" because she liked to make clothes for her dogs.
The business of the clothing store is getting bigger and bigger, and even foreign customers come to her for "advanced customization".
She first learned about the existence of "therapy dogs" from foreign clients, but at that time, the domestic "therapy dog" field was still blank.
One day in 2015, Jin Pei met biubiu on the street not far from home.
She remembered clearly that it was the night of December 25, and it was windy outside.
A dirty black shadow moved with difficulty in the wind. She took a closer look and found that the dark shadow was actually a puppy. .
"This little guy is very smart, he should want to find a home for himself." Jin Pei said, the puppy followed her when it saw people, and finally kept following her.
Jin Pei named it biubiu and took good care of it. Slowly, biubiu became more and more beautiful, well-behaved, family, and good character, and the traces of wandering gradually disappeared.
Jin Pei was still thinking about the therapy dog.
She thinks biubiu has the potential to be a therapy dog, but doesn't know how to train it.
In 2019, she met Wu Qi and immediately decided to train biubiu.
This is also a test of Jin Pei.
She thinks that if biubiu can become a therapy dog, it will provide an "employment" direction for the future of urban stray animals - they are no longer useless and affect the city's image, but can also be valued and valued.
"I want to see what it can look like." Kim Pei spent a year training biubiu as a therapy dog.
She often emphasizes: "If an old man can train a stray dog successfully, so can others."
For Kim Pei, volunteering with therapy dogs has also opened up a new world.
In the past, she didn't like to talk, but now, she is slowly opening her heart, communicating with people, and learning to take pictures, make short videos, and record oral broadcasts for therapy dogs.
As an older person, she wants to use this "new world" to fight Alzheimer's disease and to fight forgetting.
Beijing News reporter Xu Yang Zuolin intern Wang Rui