Article Discusses Debate Over Allowing Sick People to Spend Time With Pets
I’d like to thank Denise, of San Francisco, for alerting me to an article that appeared in the October 28, 2008 issue of USA Today. Here is an excerpt:
All pet owners and most in the medical community now acknowledge the healing power of animals. Some doctors even write prescriptions giving hospitalized patients access to the pets they left at home. At the 1,000-bed Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., patients can request orders for a recuperative in-room visit with their pet.
But there are pockets of disagreement among doctors when it comes to allowing seriously ill or functionally fragile people to return to a home occupied by a pet buddy. Some advise pets be exiled, fearing that someone in a full-leg cast, for example, might trip over a rambunctious cat and undo everything; or someone with open wounds or whose immune system is weak from chemotherapy or diseases like HIV/AIDS could pick up an infection from the animal.
I understand that allowing gravely ill people to visit with pets carries risks. But time spent with pets may also be beneficial. Pets create a sense of well-being. They reduce stress (which helps the immune system). They give people something to live for, and they motivate people to get well.
I have discussed the human health benefits of pets on many occasions. Check out the humanhealth tag on this blog for a sampling. Here is my take: pets are good for people.
The author of the article in USA Today seems to agree. Here is another excerpt:
Indeed, a growing body of anecdotal data suggests time with a pet may be “as powerful in the person’s recovery as the medical treatment,” says the American Humane Association’s Phil Arkow.
You have questions. 
While it is true that there are physical risks from allowing sick people to visit their pets, the emotional & psychological gains far outweigh them, It is extremely rare that an ailing parent is told to “stop seeing his/her child” even if children carry similar risks- it is time to acknowledge that for some people, the pet is every bit as important and as loved as a (human) child.
My pets have always been sensitive to what was going on if I was ill. As soon as I stopped being on my usual schedule, they got worried and came to sit and whine/meow at me to ask what was wrong.
My Aussie shepherd sat with me through a very long, very serious illness even though she was an active dog. I was too sick to do anything except sit and sleep in the chair and she sat with her nose on my knee. Probably part of why I survived because most of the time, I was otherwise alone for the day.
Currently, I have three cats. If I go back to bed sick, they tend to show up and cuddle and act worried, breaking from their usual patterns of kittenish behavior.
I agree with the first comment left: children are every bit as prone to carry disease and disaster as any animal. My elderly aunt tripped over someone else’s unattended child who ran into her in a store and she broke her arm in the fall. These days it is very, very rare that children are told to stay away from a sick family member, or vice versa. (Though when I was 9, back in 1963, I was a few years too young to be allowed in to see my grandfather in the hospital and it was only after I’d proven my ability to be quiet, well-behaved and follow directions that the nurse changed her mind and let me in to see him.)
My furry friends are the ones who stick with me and stay when I’m hurting, more than any group of humans.
From having been the sick person, I KNOW that sick people need their own pets to talk to just as much as any adult human or any child. This goes double if the person, like me, is one who is very connected to their furry friends.
As a therapy cat in training, I agree on how beneficial it is to have pets in the household of a sick person. But it depends on what the illness is. Most of the illnesses covered in this article aren’t zoonotic (able to be transfered from human to animal and back again). When there are zoonotic diseases, then there sometimes have to be special accommodations, just as if a child got the flu in a household with someone in the last stages of AIDS.
Having a retired therapy dog I agree with those who believe pets help heal those that are sick or ill. I also would love to see a doctor try to tell me I couldn’t back to a home with pets. HAHA yea right.
If you have ever seen an elderly person in a skilled nursing facility when the pets come around, you would know that the benefit they receive from that visit is well worth any health issues having a pet around would cause. Their eyes light up like it’s Christmas, they are again transported to a time and place where they had their own pet and their stories come out about some animal who made a difference in their lives. If an animal is clean and tidy when presented for a visit I see nothing but positives coming from it.