Sight-impaired people were the first to get help from dogs. Now specially trained pooches are transforming the lives of those with conditions ranging from epilepsy to autism.
Kiri Lee and Molly, photo David White
Kiri Lee averages about three to five epileptic seizures a week, and these can strike at the most inconvenient times. Consequently, she can’t drive, it’s too risky for her to climb a ladder and, unless she’s accompanied by another person, it’s dangerous for her to have a bath, go for a swim or even walk alongside a river.
Until she got her epilepsy-assistance dog, Molly, the outgoing 33-year-old didn’t even feel safe to walk down the street on her own. Since the black labrador entered her life, she can go to the dairy whenever she wants, cross the road and catch the train to work. She has also been able to move out of her parents’ home and buy her own. “Molly has really opened up my life,” says Lee.
Molly is her constant companion, at play, at work and to and from work. She is also her safety net. If Lee comes out of a seizure, needs help but can’t get up immediately, she can ask Molly to bring her the phone. If she’s disorientated, as she often is after a seizure, for up to 15 minutes, Molly will guide her home. And having Molly around, in her purple coat marked “NZ Epilepsy Assist Dog”, makes it apparent to people that when she’s having a seizure she is not drunk or on drugs, and that she might need help.
In the US, epilepsy-assist dogs are often called seizure-alert dogs, which is somewhat misleading, as the consensus is that you can’t train a dog to predict a seizure. Some dogs do learn, however, depending on the person having the seizure, and whether they get any warning signals. Molly has occasionally recognised the sound Lee makes just before a seizure, and interrupted things by distracting her by jumping up and down or licking her hand. “It’s like she changes the way my brain is working,” says Lee. “The way I look at it is that, by distracting me, she puts the train [in my brain] back on track.”
Molly was trained by the NZ Epilepsy Assist Dog Trust, which has trained 11 dogs that have transformed the lives of 11 people. “I just love seeing my daughter being able to live a life like anyone else,” says Lee’s mother, Glenn. “These dogs are wonderful.”
The trust is part of a growing recognition that dogs can be trained to support people with all sorts of disabilities. Assistance Dogs New Zealand, for instance, was set up by former guide-dog trainer Julie Hancox to train dogs for use by people with a range of disabilities.
So far it has focused largely on training dogs for children with autism, but Hancox is soon to start training a diabetes-assist dog. “When you have a diabetic low or high, your breath will actually alter, and it’s quite a significant marker in scent,” she says. (She won’t say exactly how she will train a dog to respond to the changes in the scent of someone’s breath, at least not until she has successfully trained one to do so.)
For children with autism, a dog can be trained to interrupt repetitive behaviour by nudging them or licking their hand. Or if the child is getting anxious, to calm him or her down by lying across the child’s lap. “These kids like a deep pressure … so it’s like a weighted blanket.” But the emotional support is as important as any of the practicalities, she says.
“Compared with other service dogs, it can be hard to explain what the dog is actually doing for some these disabilities, but when you’re cut off from a huge sector of society and many social interactions, you do feel isolated. A service dog can make a huge difference. For the children with autism, the dog is their own little friend.”
They may find it easier to play with a dog than other children, she says, as a dog doesn’t impose any rules of the game.
Just as Molly alerts the rest of the public that Kiri Lee is having a seizure, that she isn’t drunk, a dog in a coat can make people more sympathetic to the behaviour of a child with autism. “So the rest of the public aren’t turning around and thinking, ‘What they really need is to get some discipline into that child.’”
Somehow dogs encourage people to connect, she says. There is something about a well-behaved dog that invites people’s admiration and attention, and gets people talking to each other. At the very least they can provide a welcome addition to a family under stress. “Dogs make you laugh, as well. We all need that.”
SOFT DRINKS & BEHAVIOUR
Teens who drink a lot of non-diet soft drinks are far more likely to behave aggressively, according to research published online in Injury Prevention. Researchers asked 1900 Boston public high school students how many non-diet soft drinks they had consumed during the previous week, as well as whether they had carried a weapon or been violent toward friends and family. The authors stressed they don’t want to suggest any cause-and-effect relationship, as the exact sugar or caffeine content in the soft drinks was “unknown”. Other commentators have noted the findings reveal more about the social conditions of people who drink lots of soft drinks than anything else.
SEE BETTER, SLEEP BETTER
Researchers at Tenon Hospital, Paris, have found patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease whose vision improved after cataract surgery also experienced a significant improvement in their cognitive status, were less depressed and slept better – probably because the levels of the sleep-regulating hormone melatonin become normalised once they could see again.
BRAIN OF TWO HALVES
The left side of the brain is connected to the right side of the brain by a structure called the corpus callosum, which involves about 200 million connections. However, using fMRI imaging, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology have found people born without one (a condition called agenesis of the corpus callosum) show remarkably normal communication across the two halves of their brain. This further highlights the brain’s plasticity – its ability to develop fundamental networks even when the two hemispheres are structurally disconnected.