A Very Pawsitive Partnership
by Julianne Labreche
A clinical-academic partnership is not unlike a love affair; either it sizzles or it fizzles.
Luckily for us, our partnership not only withstood the stresses of seemingly impossible deadlines, a rigorous Ethics Board and ongoing weekly crisis. It flourished.
It began nearly two years ago. At the time, this clinician was immersed in some innovative speech therapy at The Rehabilitation Centre in Ottawa which involved bringing her then-four-year-old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever into treatment sessions with patients who had aphasia. He was actively involved in speech therapy.
Paugan, a fun-loving therapy dog with the Ottawa chapter of Therapy Dogs International (TDI), not only seemed to cheer up these patients; he also seemed to help to improve their communication skills. He put them in the mood to talk. Anecdotal evidence was abundant. What was lacking was more empirical data.
The first step involved a phone call to Dr. Linda Garcia, an enthusiastic professor at the University of Ottawa. A speech language pathologist herself, she was excited by the unusual challenge. She willingly offered to assist in a research project on the topic of animal-assisted therapy. The next step involved tapping into the very capable skills of Caroline Lafrance, a bilingual graduate student in the U of O program. Carolyn needed a research project to graduate. Like Linda, she was attracted to the topic.
Together, Linda and Caroline designed a research project that focused, quite literally, on the tail-end of nearly every therapy session with the dog. It involved a walk-back to the ward with the dog using a technique in animal-assisted therapy called double- leash walking. The concept is simple: two leather leashes are attached to the dog's collar. The handler holds one leash to control the dog within the hospital environment; the patient holds the other. The walk back, typically, seemed to encourage patients to communicate more frequently with passersby outside of the therapy environment.
This clinician offered some background guidance and direction, then left the researchers to do their job. Together, they designed an A-B-C-A design based on a similar study published in the British Journal of Nursing (Hall and Malpus, 2000, Vol. 9, No. 21) which explored the use of therapy dogs in mental health.
Basically, it was a single subject design. Part A involved two consecutive once weekly walks back to the ward with the patient and a porter. Next, part B involved two consecutive once weekly walks back to the ward with the same patient and the handler (this clinician). Part C, which followed and lasted five consecutive Fridays, involved the patient, the handler, and our therapy dog. Finally, during the last two weeks of the study, the patient returned to the ward again with a porter. No handler or dog accompanied him. All other variables remained the same: the route, the time of day, the same day of the week and the same observer.
Our observer, Caroline, tracked both verbal and non-verbal behaviors of the patient across all eleven weeks of the study. She tracked social verbal behaviors such as automatic speech, attempts to verbalize, production of words and production of sentences.
She also tracked social non-verbal behaviors including smiling, pointing, eye contact, head nods and gestures.
At the completion of the study, she tabulated the results, graphed them, and wrote her summary and conclusions. These results were presented by Caroline and this clinician at a city-wide Research Day in April and are currently being prepared for publication.
Our data also was incorporated into a quality assurance report that went to our administration just a few weeks ago.
Carolyn's data and results confirmed our clinical hunch. With the therapy dog, our patient's willingness to engage in communication with passersby improved on his walks back to the ward. Increased scores were noted in both his verbal and nonverbal communication.
Our partnership was undoubtedly a success. In the end, Caroline Lafrance completed her research project and will be granted her degree. This clinician will be able to replace anecdotes with empirical data. Dr. Linda Garcia added a little more research to the body of knowledge around aphasia. And, well, Paugan got a dog biscuit.
This year, our partnership continues. Two more research projects with Paugan are being planned.
