Canines Detecting Epilepsy in Humans

This blog will begin with a story about a dog named Diamond. Diamond is a very healthy, five year old border collie who is able to detect when her “brother” will have a seizure. Her brother refers to the nine year old boy who lives, sleeps, and loves this dog. Diamond was bought from a special breeder in Nebraska, who specifically trains dogs to detect seizures. This method is becoming very well known and used throughout the world. The trained dogs are expensive to obtain, but it is worth it if it saves a life.

There is much scientific debate about what triggers the canine to alert his owner about an oncoming seizure. Are there subtle changes in human behavior or scent right before an episode that we humans cannot detect? Most research has confirmed that epileptic patients who obtain dogs end up being more healthy and happy. The reason for this is still undetermined. Some researchers and doctors believe it stems from the comfort of having mans best friend constantly by your side. Whereas others believe that dogs who are trained or who have lived with an epileptic patient for several years can truly detect oncoming seizures.

In an article on Epilepsy.com, one epilepsy expert, Dr. Gregory Krauss, fears that epilepsy detecting canines will be giving to non-epileptic patients, which would misuse the training of these dogs. There is a very similar disorder to epilepsy that is a psychological disease. It is called non-epileptic psychogenic seizures.

Non-epileptic psychogenic seizures are episodes of movements, sensations or behaviors that are similar to epileptic seizures but do not have a neurologic origin. http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html

This disorder is a result of psychological distress. It is often misdiagnosed as epilepsy and treated as such, but this disorder is not a neurological disorder, it just appears to be. Dr. Krauss believes that it is very important to only provide epileptic patients with dogs because he feels that they are very expensive to train. Many patients with the non-epileptic psychogenic disorder will want a dog to prove that they do indeed have an illness. This is what Dr. Krauss is hoping to avoid.

Although surrounded by much debate, one point that every researcher and doctor is able to agree on, is that this behavior in canines must be further researched. If dogs are truly able to protect children and adults from harming themselves during a seizure or even detecting an oncoming seizure before it even occurs, than every epileptic patient should be assigned with a canine. Dogs are the most loyal species around. They will do anything to protect their master and loved ones. If properly trained, these dogs could make a huge difference in the medical advancement of epileptic patients.

http://professionals.epilepsy.com/page/hallway_seizure_dogs.html
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050901/849.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6047.html

Posted by Scotty Fay (1)