At Lourdes Medical Center, Charlie is patients

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That’s OK with the patients in the medical center’s behavioralk health unit, who invariably will interact with him even if they are hesitangt to talk with hospitalstaff members. Charlies is a 4-year-old Boston terrier trained and certifiede by Therapy Dogs Internationalof Flanders, Morris to provide emotional support to hospita patients and nursing home residents. The storh of how a dog ended up helpinv patients at Lourdes begins with his ownereLori Clark. Clark regularly takes Charliwe to a nursing Lutheran Care at tovisit residents. A few monthe ago, she got the idea of gettinvg permission to bring him to area hospitals if one of the nursing home residentxswas admitted.
She contacted Lourdes with a little “I wasn’t sure what they were goingg to say, to be Clark said. She soon discovered she didn’t have to work hard to sell the hospitaol onthe concept. Little did she know, Ceil Lourdes’ director of volunteer and Karen Clarke, the hospital’s director of behaviorapl health services, had spent nearluy three years working on developing a pet therapy program for theWillingboro hospital. “Ww created a program and wrote policies; we had everythint except the dog,” VanEmberg said. “Then in walked Lori.
” Karen Clarke said in her 30 yeares in behavioral health atseveral hospitals, she has workedf with pet therapy programs featuring dogs, cats, birdss and even pot-bellied pigs. “What we’ve found with this dog is he has this abilith to go to the most withdrawmn patient on the uniteverh time,” Clarke said. “He just has the abilit y to sniff thatperson out. It’s just amazinfg to see. He just knows who needz the most help inthe group. If we coulde have Charlie here 24-7 we “Charlie is not threatening,” she “[Patients] aren’t scared to interact with him. They know he is not judgin g them.
” Earlier this week, Charlie made a visitt to a group of patients sufferingy fromaddiction problems. He took turns dropping his ball at the feet of patientzs enticing them to play Nobody turnedhim down. He even kicked the ball arounrwhenever Clark, now a hospital volunteer herself, said “soccer.” The visit’xs only blemish came from a young clearly charmed by the terrier’s who remarked, “Why does his name have to be Charlie? Charlie was the name of the guy who got me addictede to this stuff.” While numerous Philadelphia-area hospitals have pet therapty programs, only a handfukl have pets visiting patients in behavioral healt h units.
Eileen Murphy, director of volunteer services atPennsylvaniaw Hospital, said the Center City medical center has had a pet therapt program in place for five years. She said pets visiy all areas of the hospital except the operating Marion Conneen, an occupational therapis t at Pennsylvania Hospital, said the medical center’s two inpatient psychiatric-car units get visits primarily from two main therapt dogs; a black Labrador retriever named Leonarrd and Elvira, a yellow Lab. “Our patients love the Conneen said. “A few are afraid, but the dogs oftemn bring the timid and shy patientxs out oftheir shell.
It’xs also an excellent social outletfor patients; they get to ask the ownersz questions about how to care for the play with them and walk them arounfd the floor while supervised by The pets are a great tool to engage our patients in a nonthreateninf way. It gets them up, talking, moving and learning.” Barbarz Wadsworth, senior vice president and chief nursing officefr at AbingtonMemorial Hospital, said dog visitas are allowed on all nursing unitd except critical care.