Pets in nursing homes bring both benefits and risks

Pets that visit nursing homes or live there with a resident can be a benefit to all, but administrators also need to consider possible risks like injuries and illness and develop policies to avoid them, researchers say. In a survey of nursing homes in Ohio, nearly all the facilities allowed pets of all kinds to visit, but they rarely had policies or protocols to protect the residents as well as the animals, the study team reports in Journal of Gerontological Nursing.