Investigating Evolving Roles of Animals in Complementary Interventions Due to Increased Longevity Affecting Aging Veterans and Civilian Caregivers Living with Disabilities: A Social Work Opportunity Presented By Increased Longevity

Background and Purpose: Increased longevity has been associated with trends of postponed marriage and childbearing and longer periods of living alone as adults across the life course. For persons living with early onset disabilities and their caregivers, increased longevity demands longer term solutions to prevent social isolation and support health and function. Longevity studies have reported a resulting increase in several potentially related phenomena: the numbers of “sandwich generation” caregivers seeking innovative complementary interventions, the elevated significance of pets as family members and therefore of prolonging the longevity of pets, increased interest in non-companion animal interventions to support function in persons with newly-survivable injuries and illnesses, and an expansion in the  companion functions of service dogs for adults with psychiatric, brain injury, and intellectual disabilities.

While there are established literatures on health effects of companion animals and on companion animal-assisted therapies, current applications of expanded roles and definitions for service animals and traditionally non-companion therapy animals (specifically equines) as humans live longer suggest a need for investigation of these changing roles.

Methods: Three systematic reviews explored changing service and companionate animal roles for non-blind persons, human/animal bond and effectiveness in equine-assisted complementary interventions, and protective factors for “sandwich generation” caregivers. Ethnographic methods of prolonged participant observation, self-report measures, and semi-structured interviews were utilized in two therapeutic horseback riding programs with sixteen adult participants. The sample is predominantly female (62% female; 38% male), Caucasian (99% white; 1% Hispanic), working/middle class (25% had a college degree), and over age 45 (80% over 45; 20% under 45). Participants were recruited via program social events and sessions and via posted fliers. Interviews elicited participants’ life history of involvement with animals in companionate and service roles, including their lived experience with therapeutic horseback riding in terms of its health impact, as a lifelong adaptive exercise, as recreation, and as a relationship within the frame of prolonged life span. Interview verbatim transcripts and participant observation notes were co-coded by independent researchers and then re-coded by using Atlas.ti software, guided by ethnographic principles and an inductive approach to qualitative analysis. Self-report measures informed the analysis.

Findings: Systematic review data suggest that animals of many types are assuming increased multi-role importance to quality of life for humans as life span increases and previously fatal illnesses and injuries become survivable.  Qualitative case study data tended to be confirmatory.  Participants reported bonding with their horses as companionate animals, while also experiencing them as service animals, recreation partners, and exercise “equipment”. They described in detail positive health and psychosocial effects which were seen as otherwise less available to them with increasing longevity. Participant observation data reflected expanding social networks and advocacy for animal access.

Conclusion and Implications: Increased longevity affords an opportunity to social work to evaluate a more fluid set of roles for animals. Research could inform decisions on training and deploying service animals and the articulation of animal-assisted activities in treatment plans to support quality of life for the elderly, persons with disabilities, their extended families, and their caregivers.