Man’s best friend may make a positive difference in the workplace by reducing stress and making the job more satisfying for other employees, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study.

Stress is a major contributor to employee absenteeism, morale and burnout and results in significant loss of productivity and resources. But a preliminary study, published in the March issue of the International Journal of Workplace Health

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Management, found that dogs in the workplace may buffer the impact of stress during the workday for their owners and make the job more satisfying for those with whom they come into contact.
The VCU researchers compared employees who bring their dogs to work, employees who do not bring their dogs to work and employees without pets in the areas of stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and support.
“Although preliminary, this study provides the first quantitative study of the effects of employees’ pet dogs in the workplace setting on employee stress, job satisfaction, support and commitment,” said principal investigator Randolph T. Barker, Ph.D., professor of management in the VCU School of Business.

“Dogs in the workplace can make a positive difference,” he said. “The differences in perceived stress between days the dog was present and absent were significant. [continue reading…]

Watch For Lee Gorewitz, Living With Alzheimer’s is an Odyssey on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

In Danville, California, the Traditions Alzheimer’s Care Unit houses 20 residents, most of who are shepherded by caregivers through scheduled activities like balloon baseball and bingo. For most residents, life is routine.

But for Lee Gorewitz, life is an odyssey.

From the moment she wakes up, Lee is on a quest for something that she can neither articulate nor comprehend. Confined by the limits of her physical boundaries, she scavenges for reminders of her old identity in the outside world.

A total immersion into the fragmented day-to-day experience of Alzheimer’s disease, You’re Looking at Me Like I Live Here and I Don’t is the first documentary filmed exclusively in an Alzheimer’s care unit, told from the perspective of someone suffering from the disease.

The film documentary airs nationally on PBS starting tonight, March 29, at 10 PM.Check your local PBS station for times in your area

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Study offers more proof for the power of placebo, say UCLA researchers

 
Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) often undergo multiple courses of antidepressant treatment during their lives. This is because the disorder can recur despite treatment and because finding the right medication for a specific individual can take time.

While the relationship between prior treatment and the brain’s response to subsequent treatment is unknown, a new study by UCLA researchers suggests that how the brain responds to antidepressant medication may be influenced by its remembering of past antidepressant exposure.

Interestingly, the researchers used a harmless placebo as the key to tracking the footprints of prior antidepressant use.

Aimee Hunter, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and colleagues showed that a simple placebo pill, made to look like actual medication for depression, can “trick” the brain into responding in the same manner as the actual medication.

The report was published online March 23 in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology.

The investigators examined changes in brain function in 89 depressed persons during eight weeks of treatment, using either an antidepressant medication or a similar-looking placebo pill. They set out to compare the two treatments — medication versus placebo — but they also added a twist: They separately examined the data for subjects who had never previously taken an antidepressant and those who had. [continue reading…]