Assistance dogs are helping people with dementia live at home as the focus shifts from full-time caring to enabling patients to support themselves, according to a study presented at a recent international conference in Kyoto.
Since the arrival of an assistance dog, a man in his 60s has started going for walks by himself, Janine MacDonald of HammondCare, a Christian charity in Australia specializing in dementia, explained at the 32nd International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease International, which ran for four days through April 29.
Under its groundbreaking pilot project Dogs 4 Dementia, HammondCare has dispatched Labrador retrievers, a breed known for assisting people with disabilities, to eight households in Australia with people suffering from dementia.