Top 7 Benefits Of Pets In Lives Of Senior Citizens Especially Post-Retirement

Pets such as dogs, cats, hamsters, birds, fishes, rabbits and guinea pigs are all suggested for senior citizens for various needs. For more active senior citizens pets like dogs are important to help them stay active and maintain good physical health, for emotional support; dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters are better to form an attachment with. For low-maintenance cats, fishes and rabbit-like small mammals are suggested. For mental stimulation, birds and dogs are best to keep you engaged. Everyone forms a different kind of attachment to their pets while an adult might treat a dog or cat like their kid, a child might form an attachment with that dog like a family member. Seniors may treat them as a responsibility and emotional companions as there are progressively feeling the loss of friendships and more loneliness.

There are various listed benefits for senior citizens that all result in better overall wellbeing by owning a pet better mental, physical and social life. Post-retirement, when you have more time, less work to do and barely any place to socialise, pets can be a refuge for emotional companionship and engagement.

Here are the top 7 benefits of pets in the lives of senior citizens.

Maintaining Good Mobility and Better Physical health

Walking your dog, playing fetch with them, and taking care of them are suggested by many doctors to help senior citizens maintain good mobility in their older years especially when joint pains, backaches and different physical maladies start setting in. It allows you to have a routine such as a walk in the park at a particular time in the morning with the added benefit of vitamin D and a connection with nature enhancing overall physical health and mobility.

Less Loneliness and Companionship

Senior citizens can consider adopting a pet to form a good companionship. It helps them cope better in case of a death or illness. Pets show great companionship and allow seniors to feel loved and needed offering them a sense of purpose to live for as they age.

Better Mental Wellbeing

Having a strong companionship and loving presence of a pet be it a dog, cat, bird, rabbit shows improvement in their moods. Dogs can show great emotional connection allowing seniors an outlet for their strong emotions like sadness and loneliness preventing depression. The mere presence of a pet can help keep many mental illnesses at bay such as anxiety and depression, etc.

Maintaining Good Cognitive Function

Birds, especially parrots help maintain good cognitive function as they can be trained to converse, learn commands, and learn to play with various toys allowing a senior to exercise cognitive function on a daily basis. Dogs are also a species that needs training and can learn command, while they may not converse, their actions and routines can help a senior or a super-senior citizen keep their cognitive function in check.

Lesser Heart Problems

Many female senior citizens show high levels of cortisol produced by stress, interactions with pets like dogs, cats, small mammals like rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters can help them reduce stress resulting in decreased levels of cortisol. Added physical and mental health benefits that a pet brings allow for reduced cholesterol levels resulting in lesser the strain on a senior citizen’s heart.

Emotional Support

Service animals especially dogs are commonly known for emotional support, especially for war veterans which allows them a special connection with a living being as they might find verbal communication and expression of their feelings more difficult. These service animals allow a deeper connection with their owner and can even sense their sadness or disease that might be coming like an asthma or anxiety attack etc.      

Fostering Responsibility and Routine

Having a pet allows senior citizens to harbor a consistent routine that helps them utilize their time in a useful way. Seniors feel needed and a sense of responsibility in the presence of a pet as it needs to be trained, and physically cared for like going on a walk, visiting the vet, etc. A sense of responsibility may also help them find a purpose and something to live for enhancing life expectancy.