Having a therapy dog visit in a hospital’s emergency department may not be commonplace, but there can be a marked benefit for some patients. That’s according to a USask research team, who introduced therapy dogs to patients at Royal University Hospital prior to the pandemic.

Research Chair in One Health and Wellness, Dr. Colleen Dell, says a patient would be approached first to see if they are interested, and then a dog team would come in and if it was a smaller dog, it would lay on the bed on a sanitary pad, allowing for an easier reach for petting. The study found that there was a clinically significant reduction in pain, depression and anxiety, and an increase in well-being.

Dr. Dell notes that this was the first controlled trial of its kind in Canada, and possibly anywhere. The next step, Dell suggests, is figuring out how this is happening and what is happening when the dog is with the patient.

Provincial head of Emergency Medicine, Dr. James Stempien, was the co-lead on this project. He says, “The Emergency Room is a hectic place, and as an ER doctor myself, I know that anything we can do to improve the patient experience is welcomed.”