Recovering from a stroke takes determination as much as treatment. Rehabilitation exercises can be tiring, repetitive, and difficult to stick with, especially when patients have little energy or motivation.
A new study suggests therapy dogs may help change that. Stroke patients who completed rehabilitation exercises with a therapy dog worked harder than those who did the same exercises alone.
Therapy dogs motivate stroke patients
Patients stayed on their feet longer, moved more during therapy sessions, and therapists rated them as more engaged.
Yet by the time patients left the hospital, both groups had recovered by about the same amount.
That is the key finding. Therapy dogs increased how much effort patients put into rehabilitation, but they did not improve short-term recovery.
Earlier research has shown why motivation matters. One survey of older stroke patients found that more than half said poor health made rehabilitation more difficult, while about four in ten identified loneliness as a major barrier.
Bringing dogs into rehab
The trial ran for about a year in Rochester, Minnesota. Researchers at Mayo Clinic enrolled 50 stroke patients and randomly split them into two groups.
One group of 25 received the usual physical, occupational, and speech therapy. The other 25 received the same care, plus a therapy dog during some of their sessions.
Most patients were in their 60s, and most were White. Hao-Yu Shih, a veterinarian on the research team, attended every session and assessed each patient before and after the study.
Brushing the coat, walking the hall
The dogs did not just visit. They were part of the exercises.
To strengthen a weak hand, a patient brushed the dog’s coat. To practice walking, a patient walked the dog down the hall.
Fourteen dog-and-handler teams took turns, all from the hospital’s Caring Canine Program. Most dogs were signed up with the Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
A few came through Pet Partners instead. Each patient met a dog in up to six half-hour sessions across two weeks.
The dog sessions replaced regular therapy rather than adding to it.
Overall, time with the dogs accounted for less than a tenth of the rehabilitation program. Patients completed about 15 hours of therapy each week during an average two-week hospital stay.
Patients pushed themselves harder
After each session, therapists rated each patient’s engagement on a six-point scale. The dog group scored significantly higher.
Wrist monitors also recorded more movement in the dog group. Those patients moved more each minute and spent about 90 percent of their sessions on their feet, compared with 81 percent for patients without a dog.
Therapists also documented their observations in the medical notes. One wrote that a “patient states that scanning to the left was easier with the dog because it was more fun.”
Another wrote that a patient “had less neuromuscular fatigue relative to sessions without a dog.”
Therapy dogs reduce stroke stress
The researchers also monitored heart activity by tracking the tiny gaps in time between heartbeats. In a relaxed body, those gaps vary more. Stress makes them more regular.
In the dog group, the variation increased from the beginning to the end of each session, suggesting a lower-stress state.
Both groups also showed lower cortisol levels, a stress hormone measured in saliva. That suggests rehabilitation itself reduced stress, whether or not a therapy dog was present.
Recovery remains unchanged
Therapy dogs did not change the final outcomes. Both groups improved in quality of life, anxiety, self-care, and mobility.
Neither group outperformed the other. Depression also remained unchanged.
Pain levels were similar as well. They fell slightly in the dog group and rose slightly in the other.
Whitney Romine, who leads animal-assisted services at Mayo Clinic, said the value lies in how a session feels, not just in the test scores.
“The presence of a therapy dog can change the entire dynamic of a rehabilitation session,” Romine said.
“Patients often share that they feel more grounded, safe and empowered to engage in therapy activities, which can make a meaningful difference in their recovery experience.”
What a few sessions can’t show
The dog time was short. The authors think that is why both groups recovered about the same.
More sessions, or longer ones, might change that. Nobody has tested it yet.
The trial was small and ran at one hospital. It followed patients only while they were admitted.
Nobody checked whether the extra effort in therapy paid off weeks or months later.
Next steps for therapy
The study was funded by Nestlé Purina, and several company employees were among the study’s authors.
Even so, the researchers say the findings should be tested in larger, longer-term studies to determine whether therapy dogs can improve recovery over time.
Brent Bauer, a physician at Mayo Clinic, said the idea deserves further study.
“Stroke recovery can be challenging, particularly when patients face barriers such as low motivation or limited energy,” he said.
“This research demonstrates that animal-assisted treatment may offer a practical and effective way to enhance engagement and support better rehabilitation outcomes.”
The full study, The Impact of Animal-Assisted Treatment on Inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation, was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Source: Earth.com
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