Table 3.

Characteristics of the retrieved studies regarding animal interventions for elderly inpatients with various illness (including Alzheimer disease and heart failure). The table reported information about the study design, the participant characteristics (sample size, disease, and setting), the intervention type (including length and animal used), the considered outcomes and the main results.

Authors and Year	Study Design	Sample	Disease/setting	Intervention Type	Length	Animals	Outcome	Findings
Kumasaka, 2012	Pre-/Post- study	20 inpatients	Oncologic patients in palliative care unit	AAA	Once per month for about 30 min	Dogs Cats Rabbits	Quality of Life (QOL) assessed through the Lorish’s Face Scale	The study outlined a beneficial effects of AAA considering the facial scale score. Mean score was 8.10 ± 3.48 before the session and 2.66 ± 1.99 after the activity (significant decrease: p < 0.01)
Abate, 2011	Prospective study	69 inpatients	Heart failure	Intervention: Canine-assisted ambulation (CAA) Control: historical population	/	Dogs	Actual distance walked Patient satisfaction	The experimental group receiving CAA walked significantly more steps than the historical group (p < 0.0001).
Falk et al. 2008	Qualitative study	35 Older people	Swedish hospital wards	Placing a bird cage in the ward lounge	September − November 2002	Birds	Participant observation (three major themes: activity, mental experience and socializing)	The patients manifested attention and curiosity toward birds, expressing desire to take care of the birds. The birds became subject of general diversion.
Cole, 2007	RCT	76 inpatients	Advanced heart failure	Volunteer-dog team (visit from a volunteer with a therapy dog) Volunteer only Control: standard care	12-min visits	Dogs	Blood pressure, Heart rate Pulmonary pressure and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure Right atrial pressure Epinephrine and norepinephrine Anxiety score	The dog intervention group had significantly greater decreases in systolic pulmonary artery pressure (p = 0.03), and in pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (p = 0.001). The volunteer-dog group had the greatest decrease in anxiety score compared with volunteer-only (p = 0.02) and control group (p < 0.001).
Stasi, 2004	Case-control study	28 Subjects	Chronic age-related disabilities in a nursing home	Intervention group: cat-therapy Control group: usual activity programs	3/week sessions of almost one-hour visit for 6 weeks	Cats	Blood pressure Cognitive impairment by mini mental state examination (MMSE). Geriatric depression scale (GDS) Self-assessment scale-geriatric (SASG). Activities of daily living (ADL) Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL)	Patients in the intervention group presented improved depressive symptoms (not statistically significant) Significant systolic blood pressure decrease was outlined in pet-therapy group compared to control group (p = 0.01).
Edwards et al. 2002	Time-series design	62 inpatients	Alzheimer disease	Aquariums placed in the activity/dining area	10 weeks	Fishes	Nutritional intake Change in body weight	Following aquariums introduction, the nutritional intake significantly increased (p < 0.001) and continued to improve during follow-up. Patient weight increased significantly (p < 0.001) over the observational period