How A Service Dog Can Help With POTS
Above all else, a service dog is able to offer protection, love, and security to someone suffering from POTS. These are things so many of us overlook in our everyday lives, but are nonetheless vital to our happiness and mental well being. This is especially true for people with debilitating conditions like POTS. Often times, people with POTS may not have a network of support from friends or family members, leaving them feeling helpless or afraid to go about their daily routine alone.
Thankfully, service dogs can be trained to notice when their owner may be experiencing a fainting spell or similarly negative symptoms. The dogs can bark or use physical contact to alert you of an impending episode. This way, you can be aware of the situation and know that a fainting episode may be near. In many cases, this allows you to regain composure and potentially avoid fainting altogether. Even if you are unable to avoid fainting, your dog will be trained to alert those nearby to bring help.
Fainting is one of the more extreme symptoms, but battling feelings of dizziness or disorientation are also very common among people with POTS. A service dog can help an individual regain balance and feel stabilized when walking. If you have a dog to walk alongside you and maintain constant physical contact, you are far less likely to feel disoriented or fall down.
Many individuals with POTS suffer from sudden changes in their peripheral vision as well. It may be that you sense movement in your peripheral, or perhaps your vision becomes blurred and your peripheral vision is reduced or completely impaired. In any case, a service dog can be a vital asset when this happens. By having a constant presence to help you steady yourself and understand your spatial surroundings, you can overcome these disorienting episodes more quickly, and (hopefully) experience less anxiety in the process.
In addition to their spatial presence and awareness, service dogs can act as a second set of eyes to ensure your safety. Simple tasks can cause individuals with POTS to suffer greatly, as they feel that their guard is down when they need to change positions. Simply bending down to pick up a dropped item can cause a dizzy spell. Thankfully, a service dog can help retrieve items for you, saving you the trouble of getting them yourself, while also making you feel safe and cared for at the same time.
Individuals who suffer from any type of physical or psychological disorder have barriers that they must overcome. A lot of people tend to keep their struggles to themselves. When this happens, they try to deal with adverse symptoms without any assistance. In many cases, this can lead to depression and other negative outcomes. Rather than taking unnecessary risks, a service animal can help ensure that those suffering from POTS always have someone to count on.
Service dogs can be specially trained to help people with POTS. However, this specialization means that POTS service dogs are significantly more expensive than many other types of service dogs. It is also more difficult for someone to obtain a POTS service dog, because a doctor may not deem it a necessity. No matter the case, animals can help anyone feel loved and cared for, while also helping them feel more independent. A service dog that is trained to help with a serious condition is even more of an asset. After all, no one should have to put a price tag on their independence.
When I first met Adele, I was intimidated by her intelligence and seriousness — but I instantly felt a bond with her. Right before I had a fainting episode, Adele would rub her muzzle area on my leg in different spots. Depending on where she nudged me, I knew she wanted me to stand still, sit down, or lay down. And while dogs can’t be trained to sense these episodes—they either have the ability or they dont—they were able train Adele to crawl under my legs when I was lying down, to get the blood back to my heart faster. (This is what your dogs breed says about you
Adele and Hector have very different personalities—Adele has always sent out this very serious aura, whereas Hector is more fun-loving—but they love each other, and they work together to protect me, which makes me feel twice as safe. And I’m trying to keep up with Hector, so I feel like he’s going to take my health to the next level.
Even before the training was over, I could see a change in what I was able to do. When I first started working with Adele, I couldnt walk up a flight of stairs or walk around the block without fainting. But once I realized I’m safe as long as I do what she says, my confidence grew. I started testing my boundaries, first with family or friends, and then I started to get braver and try things on my own.
I didn’t really know what that meant. But then I happened to catch a show on dogs that detect cancer in people. I called my doctor and asked, ‘Are there cardiac alert dogs?’ He wasn’t sure, but he encouraged me to look into it.
I didn’t see that one coming. I’m a very private person, and it took Melissa a while to convince me. But it’s important to me that people understand what these dogs can do. My only stipulation was that the movie had to have a happy ending!
HowCan A Service Dog Detect POTS?
We can not say exactly how dogs are able to sense the change in the blood flow or in the heart rate. According to some researches dogs can recognize oncoming symptoms due to their excellent sense of smell and hearing. Some dogs, especially the ones with bigger noses (the bigger the nose, the more smell-detecting cells it contains), can recognize chemical variations when the blood pressure, the level of blood sugar or the heart rate change. In addition, due to their strong hearing skills dogs might detect their owner’s heartbeat and notify them if it is abnormal.
Although some dogs have the natural ability to detect changes in the chemical processes in the human’s body, the possibility to train dogs to perform these tasks is still considered controversial. However, according to some training organizations dogs can be trained to recognize the processes in the humans’ body, accompanying this condition.
Service Dogs can assist their owners in dealing with POTS in different ways and be able to perform a variety of tasks.
ADULTS INTERACTING WITH MY SERVICE DOG AND FAINTING
As Lindsay Jones, 22, circled the jogging track for her 10th lap, Amber suddenly perked up. The 2-year-old, 55-pound yellow Labrador retriever stretched to the end of the leash that was tied up a short distance away. She stared at Jones, who knew that it was her signal to get over to her dog immediately.
As Lindsay Jones, 22, circled the jogging track for her 10th lap, Amber suddenly perked up.
The 2-year-old, 55-pound yellow Labrador retriever stretched to the end of the leash that was tied up a short distance away. She stared at Jones, who knew that it was her signal to get over to her dog immediately.
Amber nudged Jones, prompting the young woman to lie on the ground. With that, the dog climbed on top of Jones, who knew what to do next.
She checked her heart rate and discovered it was only 40 beats per minute, not the 150 beats she expected after her run.
Jones suffers from two heart conditions: neurocardiogenic syncope, in which the nerves that control her blood pressure stop sending impulses and force her blood pressure and heart rate to drop; and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which causes her heart rate to spike as her blood pressure drops.
“I have one condition that causes my blood pressure to spike and I pass out, and one that causes it to drop and I pass out,” said Jones, who lives in the University City section of Philadelphia.
Before Jones was partnered with Amber in June, her frequent passing out, more than once a week, caused 12 concussions. “I couldnt tell it was coming,” she said. “Id be in the kitchen cooking and hit my head on the floor. Since Ive had Amber, Ive not passed out yet.”
Amber has the ability to detect Jones changing heart rate and warns her with an extended stare, or by walking until her leash it fully outstretched, getting her owner to lie down until her blood pressure and heart rate stabilize.
“If its high, she lays between my legs and rests her head on my thigh and if its low, she lies all the way on top of me with her chest on my chest,” Jones said. “Until my heart rate stabilizes, she wont stand up.”
Amber has both improved and changed life for Jones, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania studying environmental biology.
“I didnt think going to Penn would be a likely option for me because my family wouldnt be comfortable with me moving across the country with my condition,” said Jones, who is now able to live on her own, away from her family in Colorado.
“While science has not exactly determined how the dogs do this, the tight bond formed by the dog and human is one where each is very sensitive to changes in the other,” said Rob Danoff, physician and program director for the Aria Jefferson family medicine residency.
“The dogs sense of smell can detect changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, even though the chemical changes in the body are minute. Also, since dogs sense of hearing is so amazing and sensitive, some can actually hear the sound of the heartbeats and alert the human if the heart rate is going too fast or too slow.”
Not every dog is up for the task. Cardiac alert dogs must have an innate ability for sensing blood-pressure and heart-rate changes, said Tonya Guy, associate director at Canine Partners for Life, which matched Amber and Jones.
It can take up to two years to figure out whether the dog has the ability. For the first year, puppies are raised by volunteers who teach them obedience, house manners, and life skills.
At 14 months, the dogs move to the training facility to learn the specific skills they may need to assist a person with a disability, including retrieving items, tugging off clothing, turning lights on and off, opening doors, taking steps one at a time, and support work to help someone replace a cane or a crutch or use mobility aids.
“They are in the kennel for nine months to a year, working on the foundation of all those skills to find out what the dog is most efficient at doing so they can do the job they love, they are good at, and the person needs,” said Anne Savo, a trainer at Canine Partners for Life.
To discover which dogs will be successful at cardiac alerting, they are sent home with a man who has multiple seizures a day. “He watches how they will react,” said Guy. “Some dogs will sleep through and not even know hes having a seizure while others will alert to it right away. If the dogs are able to alert to seizures, they are able to alert to a cardiac condition.”
Dogs without that ability are still able to provide service for people with other types of needs.
Canine Partners for Life, based in Cochranville, is one of the few groups in the country training and placing cardiac alert dogs. It trains mostly Labrador retrievers, a breed that has proven especially adept for service. It has so far matched 18 cardiac service dogs with recipients, with 10 applicants on the waiting list.
It costs $30,000 to train, place, and offer follow-up support for each dog, but recipients are asked to pay only what they can afford, typically $1,000 to $3,000. The rest is covered by private donations. Jones raised $2,500 from friends and family for Amber.
The group began training dogs for this purpose in 2006 when Marty Harris, who suffers from a severe form of neurocardiogenic syncope, approached them.
“Im one of those cases where science hasnt caught up with the condition,” said Harris, who lives in Boston. In the 10 years that Adele, Harris service dog, has lived with her, “she has prevented fainting, concussions, falling down stairs, and all the things that go with fainting,” Harris said.
Adele has recently retired to house-pet status, and keeps Harris new service dog, Hector, in line.
“If he isnt doing something to her satisfaction, shell push him out of the way and do it with him watching her,” Harris said. “Shes still the boss.”
Adele and Harris are the subjects of a new documentary, Letting Go of Adele, currently being screened in film festivals with the goal of being picked up for broader release. “The documentary is a good opportunity to help people around the world see the way service dogs change lives for the better,” she said.