DFD Helps Boost Awareness of Mental Health Support Dogs.
More people will be hearing about the health benefits that rescuing an emotional support dog can bring thanks to a news article published in Mental Healthy and Uncovered Magazine this week.
The article explains how support dogs can help people suffering depression and anxiety psychologically and emotionally as well as highlighting the issue of lack of public awareness.
“Even though the therapeutic benefits for patients of bringing a therapy dog into hospital are well documented, and the concept of using service dogs for other conditions is well established, for some reason the health benefits of using a support dog to help depression are still going unrecognised”
The article emphasises the fact that the UK is light years behind the USA in terms of recognising the importance of assistance dogs and emotional support dogs for people suffering psychological conditions like depression, both legally and clinically. It also flags the problem that in the UK there is no way to register a psychological assistance dog in the same way you can for other disabilities and conditions.
“Hopefully over time public and clinical awareness of the benefits of using support dogs to help people to recover from depression will continue to grow, people’s perceptions will change and more people will benefit from using emotional support dogs to help in their recovery from depression,”
You can read the full article at Mental Healthy Uncovered’s online magazine. Please support awareness by tweeting and liking the article on facebook!
Thanks to the team at Uncovered/Mental Healthy for helping to raise awareness of the psychological benefits of dogs for depression, We hope public and medical awareness continues to grow . – Ed