Tailoring Comfort: A Comprehensive Approach to Home-Based Palliative Care for Dogs
摘要
A pet’s life especially dogs and cats is short even in ideal circumstances. Although challenging, every pet parent eventually has to think about making difficult decisions for terminally ill pets. The growing fields of veterinary palliative care however, offer dog owners options that can prolong both quality of life and the time you get to spend with them instead of Euthanasia. A total of 50 pet owners and veterinary doctors were interviewed, primarily in suburban Mumbai, between the age groups of 20–50 years. The aim of this study was to find easy and comfortable in-home care and a reduction in stress for the patient. The study found that pets are found to be significantly more comfortable in the home environment and can more accurately assess their comfort or pain without the added stress caused by transport to a veterinary clinic. The home-solutions provided and tested are an acupressure mat to make the dog relax and engaged, a health monitoring harness which monitors the pets blood pressure, pulse rate, it’s location with the help of GPS and lastly their body temperature. This harness is connected to a mobile app which keeps the pet parents up to date.