INTRODUCTION
Background and Rationale Cancer is the one of the leading causes of death in the United States ranking 2nd and worldwidely considered a major public health problem (Siegel, Miller, & Jemal, 2016). In the Philippines, there are eleven new cases of cancer everyday. Every hour of every day, 7 adults and 8 children die of this disease (Dizon, 2017). Cancer is a group of related diseases. The body’s cells start to divide and continues to metastasize into it’s surrounding tissues without stopping (National Cancer Institute, 2015). The other names for cancer are malignancy, a malignant tumor, or a neoplasm. It is considered an abnormal growth that is named to what cell or organ they initiate (Medicine.Net, 2016).
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AAT’s main purpose of interest is the suitability of animals into a comprehensive therapy program. The goal of Animal Assisted Therapy programs is directed to improvemend of patient (Cummings, …show more content…
It’s goal is for the patient to receive love and comfort from the animal while giving patients a chance to get their minds off of treatments, pain or stress.
Animal-Assisted Interventions is not new in the Philippines. Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) has a “Dr. Dog” program that involves visits to organizations such as rescue centers and orphanages. Communitails team wants this to be pushed further (Chang, 2018).
Friends for Cancer Kids Iloilo Foundation, Inc. (FCKIFI) is a SEC- registered foundatin, a non-stock and non profit corporation that started as Mga Kaibigan Ng Kabataang may Kanser (KKK, Inc.). The organization help poor families financially to sustain medical need and chemotherapy or cancer patients. It was formed to fight against the hopelssness of children with cancer and their family. Aside from this, the organization is implementing othe programs and interventions that they see helpful for their patients including animal assisted activity (Friends for Cancer Kids Iloilo Foundation, Inc, 2017).
This situation nowadays, it is crucial to understand not only the physical needs of the patients but also their needs psychologically and sociologically (Zamanzadeh,