Contact with four-legged friends may be more effective in helping child headache sufferers than medicines, according to the results of animal-assisted therapy at a Rome hospital.
"On average, a course of pet therapy reduces the length and frequency of headaches by 50% and in some cases it cures the problem all together," said Dr. Davide Moscato of Rome's San Carlo di Nancy hospital.
The neuropsychiatrist explained that 260 headache sufferers aged 5-17 have been treated at the hospital's pet-therapy farm, which is home to a pony, a Maremma sheepdog and a goat, as well as birds, hamsters and rabbits.
The children do 20 or so 90-minute sessions in which they stroke, feed and play with the animals and carry out exercises given to them by a therapist.
The course of treatment lasts around six months and is not flanked by pharmaceutical therapies.
Nevertheless, it works and the results seem to be long lasting.
"The attacks stop, even when the children no longer come to the farm, and many parents thank us a long time after for the work we have done," Moscato said.
The expert stressed that headaches are extremely common in children.
He estimates that a third of children have at least one headache a year.
There are many causes, including eye-sight and nasal-cavity problems and infections.
Moscato believes, however, that animal-assisted therapy works primarily by counteracting the psychological factors that underlie head pain in many cases.
He said contact with animals reduces anxiety, raises sociability and self-esteem by showing children they are capable of bonding with other creatures, and gives a general boost.
But he pointed out that this form of therapy had also registered good results when used on 30 adult headache sufferers.
The San Carlo di Nancy farm animals are also helping children with other ailments.
"We have started to use animal-assisted therapy on children with psychiatric disorders, serious anxiety, depression, phobias, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism," he said.
"The results we have are only preliminary, but they are excellent".
"It seems possible for us to treat ADHD without medicines and in many cases serious phobias have been healed by pet therapy".
He explained that animal-assisted therapy is particularly well-suited to bringing children with behavioural problems out of their shells.
This is partly because the animals are friendly and, unlike adults, non-judgemental.
