There's plenty of research that confirms how great pets are as healing companions for elders.
This is even more true in dementia, a great loneliness of a condition that can often be comforted with the addition of cat and birds to the caregiving housdehold.
She had never had pets.
She didn't even like them.
That's what her sons told us.
Their mother was a 79-year-old woman who had been a German-Jewish refugee.
She had escaped Germany just jackboot strides ahead of deportation to a concentration camp.
She was very houseproud and thought animals were dirty.
She never allowed the kids to have a dog or a cat for that reason.
However, in the fourth year of her dementia, Ginger came to stay.
He wandered into the front yard and immediately sat on her knee.
We found her smiling indulgently as she petted the huge warrior ginger tomcat.
He had a half-eaten ear, a tiny stump of a tail and a particularly Buddha-like smile that day.
Same for Hannah.
except for the tail and the ear.
"Why Hannah!' we caregivers chorused.
"Who's your new friend?" "Ach!" she said with an eloquent German gesture that meant anything she wanted it to.
Ginger became her close companion, very often sitting on her capacious lap or sprawling on the bench beside.
Once I heard her saying to him, "Oh you are such a handsome boy -- vel, not a boy -- vel, votever you are -- you are very sweet.
" It was really interesting to hear her sons say how she didn't like pets while she was besotted with Ginger.
And I've seen that over and over.
Patty was an 89-year-old farmer's wife.
She had been raised on a smallholding where all the animals lived outside.
When she first came to our care home, she would shudder when any of the cats or dogs came by her.
I'd sit with her and encourage her to pat one of them or stroke another one.
Gradually she came to tolerate and eventually to enjoy them.
She also took over as their adoptive grandmother.
"Are all the cats inside?" she ask me at night.
"Are they all safe?" They never became the support that pets are to those accustomed to them, but they amused her and demanded something from her.
Responding to that helped her adjust to care home life.
Living with dementia is a very absorbing process which also often bores people.
They need an easy pal whose friendship is undemanding and constant without too much discussion.
That would be your average cat and dog.
Or singing bird.
It's pretty hard to be less than pets want.
And they never criticize when you say the same thing over and over.
They don't even think there's anything wrong with you.
David, a 77-year-old man I cared for in Oregon, had never had a dog.
His wife wouldn't let him.
After her death and my moving in, he invited my dog to live with us.
Nothing delighted him more than to watch a big red curly haired ruffian in paws charging through the house to leap on a precious Persian rug and crash into a rare Japanese painted cabinet.
"Never mind, he's okay!" Sometimes, I think people with dementia like animals because they get away with behaving badly.
A force of nature in lives constrained by loss and incapacity.
This is even more true in dementia, a great loneliness of a condition that can often be comforted with the addition of cat and birds to the caregiving housdehold.
She had never had pets.
She didn't even like them.
That's what her sons told us.
Their mother was a 79-year-old woman who had been a German-Jewish refugee.
She had escaped Germany just jackboot strides ahead of deportation to a concentration camp.
She was very houseproud and thought animals were dirty.
She never allowed the kids to have a dog or a cat for that reason.
However, in the fourth year of her dementia, Ginger came to stay.
He wandered into the front yard and immediately sat on her knee.
We found her smiling indulgently as she petted the huge warrior ginger tomcat.
He had a half-eaten ear, a tiny stump of a tail and a particularly Buddha-like smile that day.
Same for Hannah.
except for the tail and the ear.
"Why Hannah!' we caregivers chorused.
"Who's your new friend?" "Ach!" she said with an eloquent German gesture that meant anything she wanted it to.
Ginger became her close companion, very often sitting on her capacious lap or sprawling on the bench beside.
Once I heard her saying to him, "Oh you are such a handsome boy -- vel, not a boy -- vel, votever you are -- you are very sweet.
" It was really interesting to hear her sons say how she didn't like pets while she was besotted with Ginger.
And I've seen that over and over.
Patty was an 89-year-old farmer's wife.
She had been raised on a smallholding where all the animals lived outside.
When she first came to our care home, she would shudder when any of the cats or dogs came by her.
I'd sit with her and encourage her to pat one of them or stroke another one.
Gradually she came to tolerate and eventually to enjoy them.
She also took over as their adoptive grandmother.
"Are all the cats inside?" she ask me at night.
"Are they all safe?" They never became the support that pets are to those accustomed to them, but they amused her and demanded something from her.
Responding to that helped her adjust to care home life.
Living with dementia is a very absorbing process which also often bores people.
They need an easy pal whose friendship is undemanding and constant without too much discussion.
That would be your average cat and dog.
Or singing bird.
It's pretty hard to be less than pets want.
And they never criticize when you say the same thing over and over.
They don't even think there's anything wrong with you.
David, a 77-year-old man I cared for in Oregon, had never had a dog.
His wife wouldn't let him.
After her death and my moving in, he invited my dog to live with us.
Nothing delighted him more than to watch a big red curly haired ruffian in paws charging through the house to leap on a precious Persian rug and crash into a rare Japanese painted cabinet.
"Never mind, he's okay!" Sometimes, I think people with dementia like animals because they get away with behaving badly.
A force of nature in lives constrained by loss and incapacity.
Source...