Animal Assisted Therapy Research Paper

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Depression What is Depression? Depression is a very serious illness that can affect anybody. It is a result of chemical imbalances in the brain that lead to a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Some factors that have led to the onset of depression include genetics, changes in hormone levels, medical conditions, stress, grief, or difficult life circumstances. Introduction There are many different ways of treating depression. The difficult part of curing the disorder is that there is not one single treatment that will remove the feeling of depression completely. There are different types of depression and the amount it can affect a person differs. One way of treating depression is through animal-assisted therapy (AAT). Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) Animal-assisted therapy involves interacting with animals to help treat different health issues including depression. Using animals therapeutically is not a new concept. Animals were used to improve moral, help maintain the…show more content…
Deep brain stimulation is a fairly recent treatment that was found to help with depression. The treatment consists of an operation on the patient’s brain installing electrodes that are connected to a pace maker that give off current to a specific area of the brain. Specifically, the electrodes are meant to stimulate an area in the brain called “Area 25”, a known part of the brain that correlates to depression. So why would you choose AAT as a better alternative to DBS? DBS is a very recent treatment and only started in the 1990s while AAT has been in use for thousands of years. Also, the risks for the treatment of DBS are incredibly higher than that of AAT. DBS requires open brain surgery. The smallest of errors could lead to fatal complications. The cost of the treatment also needs to be taken into account. The operation for DBS costs over $40,000. This far outweighs the cost of owning a

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