6 Ways Service Dogs Help People With PTSD
The US Department of Veteran Affairs says Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) “is a mental health problem that some people develop after experiencing or witnessing a life-threatening event, like combat, a natural disaster, a car accident, or sexual assault.” PTSD is characterized by symptoms grouped into four main categories: intrusion or re-experiencing, avoidance, alteration in mood and cognition, and hyperarousal.
Using Psychiatric service dogs (PSD) is one way to help people suffering from PTSD. Psychiatric service animals are dogs specifically trained to help people with mental health disabilities like schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A PTSD service dog is a type of psychiatric service dog trained to do work and complete tasks to help mitigate the symptoms of PTSD.
In this post, we will identify six ways that a service animal can help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and the tasks they perform to do so.
Service dogs help reduce the symptoms of depression, which helps reduce suicidal thoughts and prevent suicide. Service animals can give a person a reason to rise out of bed, get some exercise, and take on the day. Having a dog as a companion can be therapeutic and help with feelings of loneliness and isolation. They also help reduce anxiety and other PTSD symptoms while improving a handler’s coping mechanisms. Overall, a service animal can help a handler gain confidence and freedom.
Service dogs are trained to make necessary calls in the event of an emergency. They may call 911, a suicide hotline, a therapist or another support person. Usually these numbers are pre-programmed on a dog friendly phone, but most PTSD service dogs will know how to dial 911 or a suicide hotline from any dog-friendly phone.
Service dogs are becoming more and more common as a treatment for PTSD. Service dogs are trained to perform many tasks that can alleviate the symptoms of the disorder by providing a sense of safety and security, physical exercises and other tasks that lessen the impact of the disability. A service dog can even be self-trained through an online course, like the one we offer at US Service Animals. Since the course has been designed by AKC-certified trainers with more than 25 years of experience, it’s extremely effective, and is designed for even novice trainers to be able to teach their dog to perform tasks that mitigate the symptoms of PTSD.
Interruptions are another common type of task provided by service dogs, as causing a distraction can assist the handler in many circumstances. Service animals may be trained to interrupt a flashback, nightmare, panic attack, self-harm, harm to others, disassociation, freezing out of fear and repetitive behaviors. These interruptions can improve the effects of mood swings, depression and anxiety. Dogs can interrupt by licking the handler’s face or hands, lying on his or her chest, nuzzling, or instigating play by bringing a toy or stick to the owner.
Service dogs can support those suffering from PTSD in a multitude of ways. The range of specific tasks a service dog is trained to perform can make a huge difference in the daily lives of their handlers. Not only can service dogs help with anxiety, depression, self-harm, and other stressful situations or emergencies, they can also provide their handlers with security and companionship which could make a world of difference for someone living with PTSD.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder manifests itself in many ways. A person with this condition may experience severe anxiety, terrifying panic attacks triggered by reminders of the trauma, insomnia, fear of crowds, flashbacks, mood swings and depression.
While service dogs were reported to help a number of specific PTSD symptoms such as having nightmares, experiencing flashbacks, or being hyperaware in public, there were some symptoms that service dogs did not help, such as amnesia and risk-taking.
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The work was funded by Merrick Pet Care, Newmans Own Foundation and the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine. More information about O’Haire’s research is featured online.
Previous research led by Rodriguez showed that the bond between a service dog and the veteran was a significant factor in the importance of untrained behaviors. Although all trained tasks were reported to be important for veterans’ PTSD, those with a service dog actually rated the importance of untrained behaviors higher than the importance of trained tasks. This suggests that there are some therapeutic aspects of the service dog’s companionship that are helping just as much, if not more, than the dog’s trained tasks, Rodriguez said. “These service dogs offer valuable companionship, provide joy and happiness, and add structure and routine to veterans’ lives that are likely very important for veterans’ PTSD.”
Rodriguez led the work with Maggie O’Haire, associate professor of human-animal interaction. Their research was published in Frontiers in Psychology. The study was done in conjunction with K9s For Warriors, with support and funding from Merrick Pet Care, and is in preparation for an ongoing large-scale clinical trial that is studying veterans with and without service dogs over an extended period of time.
How to Train a Psychiatric Service Dog
I receive many questions about service dogs for people with Post Traumatic Stress. However, trainers are often surprised to learn that there is not a clear consensus on which tasks are appropriate for this type of work.
As with other types of service dogs, a healthcare provider should be involved in selecting the tasks. A task that is appropriate for one individual may be inappropriate for another.
Some industry professionals have expressed concerns that a few of the tasks being trained to service dogs helping people with PTSD may not be helpful to the individual’s mental health. For example, cuing a dog to block the space between themselves and an unfamiliar person? Is this task actually a crutch that prevents the individual from addressing their anxiety in a better way? Another controversial task is the “room sweep” where the dog enters a room first and alerts the owner if another person is in the room.
It’s also possible that the truth could lie somewhere between, for some individuals these tasks may allow them to use less medication and to get out and about. Whereas for others, the same tasks may not be beneficial. At the moment we have more questions than answers. The Veterans Administration is pursuing research to quantify the benefits of service dogs for people with PTSD, this research has had a lot of challenges and restarts. In the meantime, the safest bet is for trainers involved with service dogs is to work in collaboration with client’s mental health providers. Discussing tasks with the individual’s health care provider can help to ensure tasks selected are really what that person needs.