FEELING ruff? Instead of medication, GPs could be prescribing dogs for older people to get fit, a new study suggests.
British researchers found that dog walking could be key to keeping older people more active by reduce the time they're sedentary by around half an hour a day.
Based on their findings the researchers from the Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia recommend dog ownership or community dog walking schemes be prescribed to seniors by GPs to help them get more exercise.
Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, they say dog walking "may have considerable potential to support the maintenance of physical activity in older adults and could form part of exercise on prescription schemes".
More than 3000 seniors who took part in the study were asked whether they owned a dog and if so, how often they took it for a walk.
They also wore an accelerometer device which measured their physical activity over a seven-day period.
One in five said they owned a hound with two thirds of dog owners saying they walked their pooch at least once a day.
They study found regular dog walkers were less active on rainy days, but were still more active on these days than people who didn't own a dog.
The study's lead author Dr Yu-Tzu Wu from the University of Cambridge said while the results were expected, the team was surprised at the size of the differences between those who walked dogs and the rest of the study participants.
"We know that physical activity levels decline as we age, but we're less sure about the most effective things we can do to help people maintain their activity as they get older," Dr Wu said.
The team suggested when dog ownership was not possible, the elderly should be encouraged to sign up for schemes which allow people to walk other people's pets, such as Dogshare and Borrow My Pooch.
