Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Guinea pigs are used as Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI) to people with different disabilities and are often used in healthcare environments. There are studies made that highlight guinea pigs as AAI for children with autism and the results show that there are plenty of positive effects for the children, but there are not a lot of studies on the effects for the animals. There are studies that have come to the conclusion that dogs show positive effects on humans when used in AAI. This study is made as a literature study that aimed to answer the following questions: 1) Could Guinea pigs be used as animal assisted interventions for people with dementia? 2) Are guinea pigs’ natural behaviours catered to when being used as animal assisted interventions to people with dementia? 3) Is there anything to suggest that people with dementia get positive or negative effects of having guinea pigs as animal assisted interventions? The information was collected from different articles, books and scientific studies from Primo (SLU-university library search engine), PubMed and Google Scholar.
The results show that guinea pigs are social animals that have been domesticated by humans to have more social interactions and vocalisations that make them the pets they are today. Used in AAI guinea pigs have positive effects on children with autism, such as the children got less aggressive, more social towards other children and calmer. In some studies with guinea pigs in AAI, the results have shown that the guinea pigs’ natural behaviours are not met, as they are stressed by being restrained, however if these are taken into account AAI can provide as a kind of enrichment for the guinea pigs. However, there are not any studies on guinea pigs and dementia. To conclude, there need to be more research on guinea pigs’ effect on people with dementia. Also, there is need for more information on the effects on the animals used in animal assisted interventions.