The Paws That Refreshes : Local professionals find animals can play a key therapeutic role in the recovery of stroke patients, accident victims and others.

As part of her therapy while recovering from a series of strokes, Martharue White, 80, tosses a ball to a trained assistant who works with her occupational therapist at Saddleback Rehabilitation Center.

The assistant, Inkspot J. Wood, deftly catches the ball in his mouth.

Inkspot (Inky to his pals) is a miniature poodle that celebrated his third birthday last Sunday. With his 3-year-old partner, Snowbear E. (Snowy) Wood, a West Highland terrier, Inky spends one day a week working with stroke patients, accident victims and other clients at the center, under the supervision of their trainer, occupational therapist Jeanie Wood.

Meanwhile, at FHP in Westminster, a skilled-nursing facility, a blind cat named Harley drops by once a month along with an assortment of dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs to work with recreational therapist Jan Bernal and her patients. Harley was rescued from an animal shelter by trainer Ken Perlis of Huntington Beach, founder of an organization called CAMP (Companion Animals Meeting People). Perlis now has 20 animals he takes to hospitals and nursing homes all over Southern California.

Although Inky, Snowy and their four-legged colleagues still draw some shocked stares when they walk down the corridors--on leashes, of course--of area health-care facilities, animals are earning increased respect for their work in hospitals and nursing homes nationwide. In 1980, only two states allowed them on the premises, but today they are welcome in nursing homes in all the states, while 48 of them, including California, permit them in acute-care hospitals as well.

A rapidly growing body of scientific research is confirming not only that hospitalized patients who have contact with animals tend to have more successful recoveries, but that household pets without the special skills of trained therapy animals can keep their owners emotionally and physiologically healthier, according to Tina Ellenbogen of the Delta Society, a nonprofit international resource organization that promotes animal-assisted therapy.

Ellenbogen, a veterinarian who is program development director for the Renton, Wash.-based group, says the most recent study, conducted at UCLA, found that Medicare patients who have pets visit their doctors less often than those who don’t.

Other studies have found that heart attack patients survive longer afterward if they have pets, and that petting an animal or simply being in the same room with one can lower blood pressure and heart rates in people. Elderly owners of dogs are more likely to eat regularly, and pet owners of all ages tend to be more sociable.

Even watching fish in an aquarium, research has shown, can be as effective as medication or biofeedback in lowering blood pressure.

Ellenbogen says it is important to set some standards to distinguish between simple animal visitation and the use of trained animals such as Inky and Snowy that actually participate in therapy.

Snowy, for example, responds to voice and hand signals from White, climbing up onto her lap as she sits in a wheelchair. The strokes have weakened her left side and impaired her speech somewhat, but with coaching from Wood, she talks to the dogs. Wood places a brush in White’s left hand and lets her brush Snowy’s fur to strengthen the muscles in those arms. The dog seems happy to cooperate.

Other activities, such as tossing the ball, playing tug-of-war with a sock, and giving the dogs treats for doing tricks are all carefully planned therapy for White’s specific needs.

“I have patients who won’t do anything, but you put a therapy dog in their lap and they start to respond,” says Wood, who did her master’s thesis on the benefits of dog ownership for children with cerebral palsy.

“Animals give love unconditionally, and they’re totally nonjudgmental,” Perlis says. “That’s especially good for people who’ve become reclusive after suffering a trauma or a stroke. Sometimes, responding to the animals is the first inkling of participation in their own recovery.”

Animals also give patients a chance to be care-givers rather than simply receivers, Perlis says.

“A lot of our residents have been here several weeks, or even months, and the animals put them back in touch with the outside world,” Bernal says. “We had one resident who was very disoriented after her stroke. But now, thanks in part to the animal therapy, she has really come around. She knows who she is, where she is, and why she’s here. And she says the animals are most definitely her favorite activity.”

When Inky and Snowy first started working at the rehabilitation center in January, they were allowed only in the hospital basement. A few months later, they were permitted to work in the occupational therapy area. They still cannot go into pediatrics or other parts of the hospital, but Wood is hopeful that their services can soon be expanded.

Wood says one long-standing assumption that has kept animals out of hospitals has no basis in fact: that dogs carry germs that could harm patients. But, Wood says, this is not the case if they are clean and free of disease and parasites. Snowy and Inky are bathed before every hospital visit, and they are checked regularly by a veterinarian.

Aside from taking the dogs through a basic obedience course, Wood has trained her dogs since they were 9 weeks old specifically for therapy work.

“My husband and I played with them, pulled their ears, put our hands in their mouths--everything we could think of to desensitize them,” she says. Wood keeps a wheelchair and walker at home, so the dogs will be familiar with them.

“Originally this was called ‘pet therapy,’ so people thought, ‘Hey, my dog could be doing that,’ ” Perlis says. “But the animals need to be trained and screened, and so do the people who work with them.

“A lot of groups are taking puppies and kittens from animal shelters into convalescent homes, but that could cause a problem because they’re usually not housebroken, and they have sharp teeth and claws. With people who are . . . unable to move fast, there’s a much higher chance of injury.”