Therapy animals can lower a person’s stress and anxiety. While many therapy animals are dogs, a therapy animal can be any animal that gets along with people and helps calm everyone around them. Surprisingly, many therapy animals are now cats.
According to an article on the Purina website, cats can help in animal-assisted therapy sessions. When cats were present during a therapy session:
- Depressed patients were more social and experienced decreases in depression.
- Children with severe ADHD showed increased attention spans.
- Autistic or developmentally disabled patients were more social and showed increased attention spans.
- Patients with Alzheimer’s experienced decreases in depression and anger with increased attention spans.
Many people actually find a cat seems less threatening or intimidating than a dog. That means a cat can prove more calming than a dog in many cases, which proves once again that cats can be better than dogs.
To read more about cats as therapy animals, click here.
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