Muma Children\u2019s Hospital at Tampa General Hospital<\/a> wanted to find out more about the effect of animal-assisted therapy on a child\u2019s rehabilitation. The hospital is leading research to quantify that impact. USF Health is also participating in the study.<\/p>\n\u201cAs a child specialist working with these pediatric facility dogs, we see the impact that these dogs make on the kids,\u201d said Paige Rechsteiner, Child Life coordinator at Muma Children\u2019s Hospital at TGH.\u00a0Rechsteiner is \u201cMillie\u2019s\u201d handler.<\/p>\n
ABOVE: Watch Melissa Eichman’s report.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is the chief snuggle officer here at Muma Children’s Hospital,\u201d Rechsteiner said of Millie\u2019s official title.<\/p>\n
Together, they have about 2,000 encounters with pediatric patients a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see that they tend to be a little less anxious when they’re in these procedures, when they’re in these rehab sessions, and so we wanted to see if we could quantify what we were seeing, if we could actually track that and get it in numbers,”\u00a0Rechsteiner said.<\/p>\n
Research began in the fall of 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at different markers of anxiety and heart rate to see if those things were changing during therapy sessions and to see if the kids were less anxious, but also more cooperative with their rehab sessions as well,\u201d said Rechsteiner.<\/p>\n
Fifteen-year-old Caddie Schelle says Millie made her feel more at ease after suffering a brain bleed last summer.<\/p>\n
And those snuggles and time with Millie helped build her strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving our kids throw a ball for Millie helps them keep their balance, but also works on their arm strength as well,\u201d said\u00a0Rechsteiner, who says activities with Millie are intentional for a patient\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n
Millie was with Schelle\u00a0through her time in the ICU and during physical therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe’s the sweetest thing ever, makes me laugh,\u201d said Schelle.<\/p>\n
Those are moments Caddie\u2019s father also appreciates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst thing for a parent is to see your child in pain or afraid,\u201d said Rob Schelle. \u201cSo, to give her just a few moments of calm is always relaxing to you as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the data that measures that calm and comfort has been analyzed, which is expected in a few months,\u00a0Rechsteiner hopes the findings will help create guidelines for hospitals across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow to best help those patients in rehab programs and how to include that animal-assisted therapy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Better understanding therapy that helps distract and comfort kids with the strength of unconditional love.<\/p>\n
\u201cGets you a bit more motivated,\u201d said Caddie Schelle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Animal lovers know how much comfort and unconditional love can come from four-legged friends. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3948,274,571,276,1187,115,135,137,136,278],"class_list":["post-184973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-health","tag-app-top-stories","tag-health","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-melissa-eichman","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}