Ruminations

Taking Note of Potential Dog-Walking Risks for Seniors

"Dog walking, which has repeatedly demonstrated social, emotional and physical health benefits, is a popular and frequently recommended activity for many older Americans seeking new ways to stay active."
"This study highlights that while there are undoubtedly pros to dog walking, patients’ risks for falls must be factored into lifestyle recommendations in an effort to minimize such injuries."
Kevin Pirruccio, medical student, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

"We make all these recommendations about pets, and yet we don't really understand if there are potential negative implications."
"There are things we should be aware of before saying, 'Hey, you should get a dog and take your dog for a walk'."
Jaimo Ahn, associate professor of orthopedic surgery, Penn Medicine

A growing body of research is discovering that pet ownership and health and happiness go together. But this is also a new area of study, without having as yet achieved any robust sample sizes or control. Now a new study, while validating that seniors who bring companion pets into their homes and respond to the dogs' need to exercise -- taking them out for daily walks -- are in the process aiding their own health for the better, it is the very act of walking with a leashed dog that "imparts a significant and rising injury risk in older adults".

Unsurprising, since leashed dogs are known to pull impatiently, are able to walk more speedily than their people; dogs sometimes get underfoot and cause stumbles; and if an older person is walking on uneven ground, it presents no hazard for a four-footed animal, but it might for a human. Dogs can get into an altercation with another dog while on leash. In short, any number of causes for a stumble or a fall can arise when walking a leashed dog in an outdoor environment. Winter walks present even more challenges with icy surfaces underfoot.

The University of Pennsylvania researchers' study found that between 2004 and 2017, bone fractures associated with walking leashed dogs doubled, and then some, among U.S. residents 65 years of age and up, of whom eight in ten who suffered fractures were women. The most commonly injured bones were in the hips, wrists and upper arms. The U.S. Consumer Products Commission which records injuries, reported a nationally representative sample of some 100 emergency rooms nationwide and produced a public data base of dog-walking fractures.

Those fractures increased from 1,572 reported in 2004 to 4,396 in 2017, a reported number of incidents that rose at a significantly higher rate as compared to the overall number of fractures. Baby boomers, pointed out Dr. Ahn, are more active than their counterparts in previous generations, and he believes that health-care providers are increasingly suggesting to their patients that having a dog in their household would give them an incentive to get out and get walking, to improve their overall health, without thinking through to important caveats.

The study, published in JAMA Surgery, focused exclusively on seniors, representing a group that Dr. Ahn felt his team of researchers recognized as most vulnerable to this type of physical injury, for whom broken bones can result in a particularly insidious outcome. The study, emphasized Dr. Ahn, was not meant to discourage seniors from acquiring dogs as pets, nor to get out walking with them. Health care providers, he stated, should ideally discuss risks with patients and older people in particular.