UK: How farming therapy and horticulture is helping dementia sufferers in South Yorkshire
An initiative in Sheffield, called Farming Comes to You, is employing a form of animal-assisted therapy where volunteers take things like goats, guinea pigs and ducks into local nursing homes.
By Ruth Dacey
Yorkshire Post
31st May 2021
Excerpt:
Dementia patients are also able to visit the animals directly at Heeley City Farm after a risk assessment, and there are also gardening and musical activities available.
Lucy Dean, 21, a third year-medical student from the University of Sheffield who has recently helped on the initiative, recalled the “astonishing” benefits which the project brought to a dementia patient.
She said: “I remember her being a bit withdrawn and quiet, but the minute she sat down and a guinea pig was placed on her lap and the goats were let out to roam around her, she just came to life.
“She started chatting to me freely about her life and singing to me all these songs that she knew from her childhood, and it really just showed how calming the effect of animals can be
on people.
“No drug could have helped her feel that happy with herself.”
Lee Pearse, who is a national champion for Alzheimer’s Research UK, acknowledged that while society has come “a long way” in supporting and understanding dementia, he said there is an “urgent need” to expand the initiative across Yorkshire to cope with demand.
