Baby dolls have a calming influence on some residents and reduce agitation in both men and women.
Here at La Pueblita we have an amazing opportunity to cuddle a real baby…. 5 month old Juan Diego.
Sometimes Juan Diego’s siblings and cousins come to visit us too, and to watch the residents’ faces light up is a beautiful thing, they come alive with smiles and help us to feed, rock and play with the baby…..that is when the staff don’t take over!!! Who doesn’t love a baby?
We feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity to have real baby therapy time with our residents and we cherish these moments and these photographs.
Doll therapy is also one of them. Its scientific research started twenty years ago, first
talking about stuffed animals. Papers on human baby dolls started coming out just about
fifteen years ago. It is a relatively new field that is already showing promising results.
Benefits associated with this therapy:
• Decreased anxiety
• Decreased agitation
• Increased happiness levels
• Increased social interaction
• Increased activity level
• Improved ability to receive care
• Fewer negative verbal expressions
• Improved mood
• Decrease in wandering
• Decrease in obsessions
• Improved food intake
The doll therapy also offers some indirect benefits. These are the ones that don’t relate directly with the patient’s health but with the people around them and the whole society. Such as:
- Reduce the use of antipsychotic drugs
- Low cost
- Reduce caregiver’s stress
- Is a safe, low-risk type of therapy
To learn more about this topic, it is highly recommended to read this article: https://lapueblita.com/blog/doll-therapy-non-pharmacological-treatments/
