Laying On of Paws Credited With Unleashing Patients to Help Themselves : Medicine: Pet-assisted therapy shows that animals can build rapport with hard-to-reach patients, bolster self-esteem, reduce depression and anxiety, and reduce medication used in a nursing home.

Janelle Lalonde is locked in a silent shell that few can penetrate. But her new friend, Kyra, is helping her emerge.

Last July, the 18-year-old woman, nicknamed Nell, smashed her head on a rock ledge in a car accident. Despite four brain operations, she remains paralyzed, speechless and barely responsive.

In October, Lalonde came to the Hilltop Manor rehabilitation center in this Albany suburb. Here, thanks in part to Kyra, an extraordinary therapy assistant, Lalonde is progressing in the excruciating work of relearning the tiniest tasks: moving an arm, twitching a smile muscle.

Kyra is a bouncy blond with silken hair and sparkling brown eyes. She’s affectionate and playful. She’s patient. She’s always cheerful, never criticizes. She encourages with licks or a wet-nosed nudge, and shows approval with a wide grin and lolling tongue. In short, she’s a dog.

Kyra, a golden retriever, is one of a swiftly growing number of dogs trained to help in various sorts of therapy.

“Nell and Kyra have a special bond,” said Kathy Lalonde, Nell’s mother, who relocated 100 miles south from the Adirondack hamlet of Tupper Lake to be near her daughter.

“Nell responded to Kyra right from the start,” said Corinna Campbell, occupational therapist and Kyra’s owner. “At first it was just something in her face. Now, she pulls to the left to lean on Kyra, and she turns her face away from Kyra’s kisses. She wasn’t moving her right arm at all, and now she moves it to pet Kyra.”

Kyra accompanies Campbell to work every day at Hilltop Manor. Their workplace is a private rehabilitation center for adults and children with severe brain injuries from accidents, child abuse or other trauma.

Campbell devises specific activities for each patient to do with the dog to develop various motor and verbal skills: Brush the dog, throw the dog a ball, crawl with the dog on a mat, give the dog commands.

“Sometimes patients will refuse to work for a therapist, but they’ll do it for the dog,” Campbell said. “When Kyra comes along, they’ll start petting her, they’ll practice standing holding onto her. I’ve seen some dramatic responses in cases where we weren’t getting any.”

People have been taking dogs into nursing homes and pediatric wards for decades, Campbell said, mainly as a diversion--something to pet and start a conversation over.

Animal-assisted therapy takes a step beyond that traditional “feel-good” therapy. It’s done under the supervision of a physician, psychologist, physical therapist or other practitioner with specific goals in mind. Nowadays dogs are being used in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, prisons and facilities for the physically and mentally handicapped.

Maureen Frederickson, program director of the 8,000-member Delta Society, said pet-assisted therapy is growing “exponentially.” The Delta Society, founded in 1977 and headquartered in Renton, Wash., promotes strong bonds between humans and animals.

“As far back as Plato and Socrates,” Frederickson said, “there were admonishments for people to spend time with animals and nature for their health. It’s only recently through the Delta Society that we’ve established a scientific basis for treatment.”

The Delta Society maintains a national library of research on the healing benefits of interactions with pets. Much of that research is first reported in the society’s peer-reviewed academic journal, Anthrozoos.

Cardiologist Warwick Anderson in Australia, for example, made one such report. He followed 8,000 people for three years and found that pet owners had a lower risk of heart disease than people without pets. Pet owners, he discovered, had lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and lower blood fat levels.

In a 1994 article, Dr. Aaron Katcher of the Brandywine Treatment Center near Philadelphia wrote that animal-assisted therapy “has a large, lasting and broadly distributed therapeutic effect on highly aggressive, emotionally disturbed children and adolescents with severe learning difficulties.”

Other studies have shown that pets can build rapport with hard-to-reach patients, bolster self-esteem in traumatized children, reduce depression and anxiety, and reduce the amount of medication used in a nursing home, Frederickson said.

The Delta Society acts as a referral service for people who want to take part in a pet-assisted therapy program. It also trains volunteers and screens and certifies dogs. More than 1,600 owner-dog teams have been registered in the last four years, Frederickson said.

In Chicago, a 4-year-old organization named Chenny Troupe, after the co-founder’s Labrador retriever, has been so successful that members are developing a manual for others interested in starting similar programs.

Chenny volunteers recently began working with teen-agers at City Girls, a residential drug-abuse treatment center, in an eight-week pet program. The girls learn how to care for and train dogs.

“They learn to trust and to be assertive,” said Niki Surico, clinical coordinator of the City Girls program. “They learn patience and nurturing and praise.”

“Dogs are really motivating,” said Laura Oak, a therapist who works with Chenny Troupe teams at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. “They get patients to do things without thinking it’s therapy.”

“One girl with cerebral palsy improved her ability to speak by giving the dogs commands,” said Chrisann Schiro-Geist, a researcher at the University of Illinois who is doing a controlled study of pet-assisted therapy at the institute. “Another programmed her voice board to give commands.”

“It took my Siberian husky four tries to pass,” said Jacqui DeMarco, executive director of Chenny Troupe. “We really need the finest dogs. They have to be very friendly and tolerant.”

The Delta Society can be contacted at 321 Burnett Ave. South, 3rd Floor, Renton, WA, 98055. Phone (206) 226-7357; Therapy Dogs International at 6 Hilltop Road, Mendham, N.J., 07945.