Understanding seizure dogs (PDF; 243 KB)
Source: American Academy of Neurology

Seizure response dogs are animals that respond to a person having a seizure. Usually, the dog will be helpful in some way during the seizure itself. The dog may respond by instinct, or it can be trained for this purpose. Such animals may be able to alert others that a seizure is happening or will stay with the person during a seizure to help avoid injury. Finally, as the person is awakening from the seizure, the presence of the seizure dog can be both reassuring and reorienting to the patient. Many patients report feeling more confident, knowing that they have some type of assistance for their seizures.

A seizure alert dog is one that can alert the patient or family member before a seizure begins, or in the very early phase of a seizure, so that appropriate steps may be taken to make sure that the patient is safe. We do not understand how dogs might be able to do this, and we do not know much about how good they are at predicting seizures correctly. Mostly we know that people with seizure alert dogs report feeling “better” and “more confident” and enjoy the companionship of their seizure dog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Diseases and conditions, Health and healthcare, Veterinary Medicine/Animal Welfare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.