NCT03687671

Long-term Effects of AAT in Patients With ABI

Long-term Effects on Socioemotional Skills of Animal-assisted Therapy in Patients With Acquired Brain Injury

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 70 (actual)
• Sponsor: Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The aim of this study is to investigate weather patients treated with animal-assisted therapy show better socioemotional skills compared to treatment as usual. 70 patients will be allocated randomly to one of two groups (control group and intervention group). During 6 weeks, all patients get two therapy sessions (AAT vs. TAU) per week. The 35 patients in the control group will get treatment as usual (TAU) in speech therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy twice a week whereas the 35 patients in the intervention group will get the same therapies but there will be an animal included in the therapy sessions. The main outcome is the amount of expressed emotion and interaction in a standardized social situation measured via behavioral video coding. Measurements will be done before the first therapy session (pre-measurement, t0) and after the last therapy session (post-measurement, t1) of the 6 weeks of intervention. The follow-up measurement will be done 6 weeks (follow-up I, t2) and 12 weeks later (follow-up II, t3).

Conditions

• Acquired Brain Injury

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Animal-assisted therapy	Animal-assisted occupational therapy, animal-assisted physiotherapy and animal assisted speech therapy with different animals. All animals are trained for the specific service with vulnerable patients. There are guinea pigs, rabbits, miniature pigs, sheeps, goats, chicken, dogs, cats and horses.
OTHER	Treatment as usual	Speech therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-11-01
• Primary completion: 2024-06-20
• Completion: 2024-06-20
• First posted: 2018-09-27
• Last updated: 2024-11-05

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Switzerland