Pets Help Older Adults Age Well, But Policy Gaps Leave Them Vulnerable, Review Finds

For millions of older people around the world, a dog sleeping at the foot of the bed or a cat curling up on a lap is not a luxury but a lifeline. A new scoping review published in BMC Geriatrics has brought together the evidence on what happens when people age with animals, and the picture it paints is both heartening and troubling. Companionship, social connection and physical activity emerge as consistent benefits of pet ownership in later life, yet the review also reveals that pets can become a source of financial strain, housing insecurity and even self-neglect, and that the systems meant to support older adults remain largely blind to the bonds they share with their animals.

The review, led by Carolyn Murray of Adelaide University in Australia together with colleagues from SA Health and the Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Physical Activity, took a deliberately broad approach. Working with an academic librarian, the team developed search terms and systematically combed ten academic databases along with grey literature, the reports, theses and policy documents that often fall outside conventional journal indexes. Results were exported into EndNote and then into Covidence, a screening platform, with duplicates removed at both stages. Titles, abstracts and full texts were screened in duplicate before data were extracted into structured worksheets covering study characteristics, context, outcomes and the factors that shape whether animals are included in older adults’ lives.

The final tally came to one hundred records, a substantial evidence base for a topic that has often been treated as anecdotally rich but scientifically thin. Most of the included studies came from the United States, which contributed thirty-nine records, followed by Canada with sixteen. The settings were heavily skewed: seventy-one of the records concerned older adults living in the community in their own homes, twenty focused on residential aged care facilities, and nine spanned mixed settings. Dogs dominated the literature, appearing in forty-two records, and the vast majority of the material, seventy-seven records, was primary research rather than commentary or secondary analysis.

To make sense of this heterogeneous body of work, the researchers organised their findings using a socioecological framework, a model that sorts influences on health and behaviour into nested levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, organisational and governmental. This lens proved revealing. The benefits and burdens of pet ownership clustered overwhelmingly at the two innermost levels. At the intrapersonal level, pets provided companionship that buffered loneliness, a finding of particular weight given that social isolation is recognised as a risk factor for depression, cognitive decline and mortality in older populations. At the interpersonal level, animals acted as social catalysts, prompting conversations with neighbours, facilitating visits and creating routines that connected owners to the world beyond their front doors.

Physical activity emerged as another recurring theme, particularly for dog owners. Regular walks impose a structure on the day and encourage time outdoors, with downstream effects on cardiovascular health, mobility and balance. For older adults whose social circles shrink through retirement, bereavement or relocation, the daily obligation to exercise a dog can function as an informal but effective public health intervention, one that requires no prescription and no clinic.

Yet the review is careful not to romanticise the human-animal bond. The same attachment that delivers companionship can become a liability when circumstances turn against the owner. The evidence shows that pets may contribute to self-neglect among older adults who face financial or housing pressures, as owners prioritise their animals’ needs over their own food, heating or medication. An older person on a fixed income may skip meals to afford veterinary bills, or refuse to move into supported accommodation because pets are not permitted, effectively choosing between an animal and a safer living environment. These are not marginal cases; they are structural consequences of support systems that treat pets as optional extras rather than central relationships in older people’s lives.

The outer levels of the socioecological framework are where the literature falls silent, and this is the review’s most pointed critique. Community-level factors, such as the availability of pet-friendly public spaces, affordable veterinary services and animal-assisted programmes, receive comparatively little scholarly attention. Organisational factors are similarly underexplored: residential aged care homes and retirement villages operate under policies that vary widely in whether, and under what conditions, residents may keep animals, yet the impacts of those policies on resident wellbeing are rarely evaluated. At the governmental level, legal and policy frameworks ultimately determine the conditions under which pets are included in older adults’ lives, from tenancy law to aged care regulation, but the review found scant research examining how these frameworks affect outcomes for older pet owners.

This gap matters because the demographic and cultural context is shifting. Ageing populations across high-income countries are growing, and pets are increasingly regarded as family members rather than property. As more older adults enter residential care or downsized housing with animals in tow, the collision between affectionate bonds and restrictive institutional policy is set to intensify. The review suggests that older adults would benefit from concrete supports: pet care options for times when illness or hospitalisation makes caring impossible, and financial and practical assistance to help owners meet their animals’ needs without sacrificing their own. Without such provisions, the risk is that a source of health and happiness becomes a vector of hardship precisely when people are most vulnerable.

There is also the difficult question of pet loss, which the review flags as an under-addressed dimension of ageing with animals. Older adults may outlive their pets, or may be forced to relinquish them as their own health or living conditions change. Either scenario can trigger grief compounded by guilt, particularly when relinquishment is involuntary. For a population already at elevated risk of depression and isolation, the loss of a daily companion and the routines built around that companion can be destabilising, yet bereavement support and transition planning for older pet owners barely feature in the literature the review captured.

Methodologically, the review followed the PRISMA-ScR reporting guidelines and used a Population, Concept, Context framework to structure its question, lending transparency to a field where study designs, settings and outcome measures vary enormously. The authors, who also include Demi Germeroth, Carmel Nottle, Victor Krawczyk, Janette Young and Alyson J. Crozier, acknowledge the support of the academic librarian at the University of South Australia and the Office for Ageing Well, which funded the work under its Impact Research Grants for Ageing Well 2023 programme. Their conclusion is a call to rebalance the evidence base: with one hundred records already documenting benefits at the level of the individual and the dyad, the next frontier is understanding how communities, care organisations and governments can be designed so that the oldest members of society can keep the animals they love, and keep themselves well in the process. For researchers, the message is to study policy; for policymakers, the message is that the evidence for including pets in older adults’ lives is already strong enough to demand attention.

Subject of Research: Pet inclusion and its outcomes for older adults ageing in community and residential care settings

Article Title: Ageing with animals: a scoping review exploring pet inclusion for older adults through a socioecological lens

Article References: Murray, C., Germeroth, D., Nottle, C., Krawczyk, V., Young, J., & Crozier, A. J. (2026). Ageing with animals: a scoping review exploring pet inclusion for older adults through a socioecological lens. BMC Geriatrics. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-026-08414-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12877-026-08414-6

Keywords: pet ownership, older adults, ageing, scoping review, socioecological framework, residential aged care, companionship, social isolation, physical activity, pet policy, gerontology, animal welfare