Can You Help When It Hurts? Dogs as Potential Pain Relief Stimuli for Children with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities

Abstract

Dear Editor, As it is widely recognized, individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMDs), who are characterized by severe or profound motor disabilities combined with profound cognitive and sensory impairments [1], are at a significant high risk of pain from many sources, including daily care activities, medical procedures, and illness (e.g., [2,3]). Among the nonpharmacological interventions that have already been proposed for alleviating pain in individuals with significant neurologic impairments, increasing attention is currently being devoted to animal-assisted therapy (AAT) programs as effective pain relief interventions [4]. In this letter, we report first experimental data on the potential of therapy dogs as pain relief stimuli for children with PIMD. Given the lack of literature on AAT programs specifically developed for these individuals, we consider that the results here presented may constitute a promising platform to support further investigations. An exploratory study—approved by the Ethics Committee of the O'Porto University—was conducted aiming at assessing, in two children with PIMD, apparent pain relief induced by contact with a therapy dog immediately after a potentially painful care moment. Given the highly limited communication repertoire of the participants (and of children with PIMD in general), only behavioral (following Putten and Vlaskamp [3] and Green and Reid [5]) and heart rate (following Corff et al. [6]) measures were used to estimate pain levels. As to offer a comparison to pain alleviation that might be achieved through maternal touch, responses of the participants to contact with their mothers were …