Animal-assisted Therapy

Body

Come meet our favorite Labradooodles, Wrigley and Louie. the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab's trained therapy dogs!  Animal-assisted Therapy (AAT) is the use of a dog to facilitate positive changes in a broad spectrum of therapeutic settings. Under direction of health services and education professionals, animal-assisted therapy can promote physical movement, emotional well being, cognitive awareness and social improvement for people with disabilities.

Our staff canine companion & service dogs assist patients with various physical, cognitive and emotional treatment goals through individual treatments or visits to the patient units handled by trained recreational therapists.

We also offer a weekly animal-assisted therapy program with the Canine Therapy Corps. Certified therapy dogs and volunteers work in groups with patients to reach rehabilitation goals supervised by recreational therapists.