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service dog for sleep apnea

service dog for sleep apnea

service dog for sleep apnea

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service dog for sleep apnea

About Sleep Apnea

Before we get into canine matters, let’s take a closer look at the sleep condition itself. To get some insight into how a service dog could help with sleep apnea, you must understand how the disorder affects your health.

The phrase ” sleep Apnea” is an umbrella term that describes a condition that affects your breathing as you sleep. People with sleep apnea can experience a wide range of symptoms. These include severe snoring, a pause in breathing, random gasps for air, and more.

While the issue might seem simple enough, it can cause some detrimental health problems if it goes unaddressed. Even a few seconds of not breathing deprives your brain and organs of the oxygen it needs to survive. Sleep apnea can lead to obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, and heart failure, among other things.

It increases your risk of debilitating health problems. On top of all that, it can seriously impact your ability to get a good night of sleep! Many sufferers experience chronic drowsiness and an inability to focus throughout the day.

The symptoms and risks are the same across the board, but there are three types of sleep apnea. The most common is obstructive sleep apnea. Here, mechanical problems cause intermittent pauses in breathing. In central sleep apnea, the brain is to blame because it fails to send the right messages to the muscles that control breathing. Finally, there’s complex sleep apnea, which is a combination of the two former types.

service dog for sleep apnea
service dog for sleep apnea

How Would a Service Dog Help Someone with Sleep Apnea?

One of the most significant impacts sleep apnea can have on a person is waking up feeling tired, run-down, and as though they didn’t get a restful night’s sleep at all. This can impact every part of their day, including resulting in poor performance at work or school, being distracted or unfocused behind the wheel of an automobile, and even developing a short temperament.

A service dog can positively impact a person’s life when they’re dealing with sleep apnea in numerous ways. Perhaps one of the most significant is providing companionship and another physical presence to be alert for various dangers and hazards throughout the day.

A service dog may also be able to alert the person with sleep apnea when they’re experiencing significant sleep problems throughout the night. Oftentimes, too, sleep apnea can result in anxiety as the individual is worried, can’t seem to solve problems as easily because of a lack of sleep, and so forth.

Service Animals

Service animals are different from both therapy animals and emotional support animals. Not only do they need to undergo training from specific organizations, but they are also comparatively expensive. Training fees can go up to $25,000! Another distinction is that, barring a few exceptions, service animals are for the most part dogs. They are recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and must be permitted by law to remain with their owners in public areas. Mobility support dogs, seizure assistance dogs, severe allergy alert dogs, visual assistance dogs, and other similarly specialty-trained dogs fall under this category.

Emotional Support

Of course, service dogs can also provide emotional support.

Dealing with sleep apnea is not easy. It can cause severe anxieties that snowball into other areas of your life. For those who live alone, the stresses of sleep apnea are even more significant.

Dogs have a lot to offer in terms of companionship. Having a dog nearby can ease your anxieties and make you feel less alone as you deal with this disorder.

Because service dog training for sleep disorders is still in its infancy, it’s not always easy to qualify for one. However, physicians can still recommend an emotional support dog. While slightly different from a full-fledged service dog, emotional support animals still enjoy many of the same benefits.

service dog for sleep apnea
service dog for sleep apnea

Sleep Safety With Service Dogs

The biggest reason to entrust the training of your service dog to a professional is the specificity of skills it will need to master for its owner. Many times, it will need to respond to its owner’s needs at night.

Those with PTSD, for example, may experience recurring dreams or nightmares that include aspects of past traumatic events, difficulty in falling asleep, and fragmented REM sleep. A trained service dog can remain alert to the signs of disturbed or fragmented sleep, such as tossing and turning or vocalizing and can then wake its owner and provide comfort and a sense of safety.

A seizure alert dog, meanwhile, recognizes when their owner is about to have a seizure and can wake their owner or a caregiver to provide further care. Training a dog for this specialized work may take more than two years.

Sleep apnea is another condition that can merit the care of a service dog. This serious illness increases the risk of stroke, heart failure, diabetes, and more. A service dog can be trained to alert their owner when they experience the airway obstruction that is a symptom of sleep apnea, as well as provide comfort to someone after an attack of apnea.

Benefits of Co-Sleeping on Sleep Disorders

While it is not ideal for every individual, there is evidence-based research supporting how co-sleeping with service dogs, especially in individuals with sleep disorders, has numerous benefits. Co-sleeping with service dogs can ensure that it is engaged and alert to when their caregiver needs them to be involved most. Additionally, a fact that might be surprising to some, is that we now have research demonstrating that co-sleeping helps dogs build a sense of security, confidence, and independence in contrast to being forced to sleep independently. However, co-sleeping is not always possible or preferred by the caregiver, in which case simply having your service dog sleeping closely adjacent to your sleeping space can serve the same purpose. For individuals who suffer from PTSD, it is recommended that a service dog sleep within arm’s length of their caregiver.

service dog for sleep apnea
service dog for sleep apnea

How Can a Person Get a Service Dog?

For somebody who has been dealing with sleep apnea for any length of time, they may wake up feeling exhausted, as though they didn’t get any rest, they may begin feeling anxious, nervous, or worried about their condition, or are experiencing near misses, mishaps, and accidents because of a lack of focus.

A person with sleep apnea could potentially get a service dog, but the owner needs to meet specific criteria. In order to get a service dog for somebody with sleep apnea, they must have a diagnosed physical or mental disability that negatively impacts or impairs their day-to-day activities, safety, and have a demonstrable need for a service animal that will directly support their specific illness.

If you’re the one who is experiencing sleep apnea and are considering a service dog, if you haven’t done so already you will need to make an appointment and see your primary physician and discuss the potential of a service dog supporting you.

You will need to be present while your dog is being trained for this specific supported task and also need to have the ability to provide commands and to care properly for your service dog. You need to have a stable home environment and have the required financial means to properly support and care for the animal.

How are we treating sleep disorders with service dogs?

I recently read one interesting article by Mary W Rose PsyD published in Sleep Review magazine in July/Aug 2015. This article explains how the dogs are assisting patients with several sleep disorders.

These include:

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)/Parasomnias

  • One patient in Houston is reportedly assisted with a light paw nudge from her small dog whenever she pulls off her PAP mask in her sleep.  Maybe the dog is annoyed by the leak! Dogs also can redirect a patient back to bed should they wander in their sleep. This helps prevent falls at night or people leaving the premises in their sleep.

Narcolepsy

  • There are stories about dogs being trained to sense an attack of cataplexy several moments before the incident. These SA dogs are being taught to stand in front of the patient /owner to break a possible fall onto a hard surface, or even to call 911 from specially designed phones. In other cases they can retrieve medications in time to avert an attack or episode from even happening. The article cited at least two agencies that have trained numerous dogs to assist narcolepsy patients. One is Service Dog Academy in West Seattle and the other is PAWS Training Center in four locations.

Nightmares and debilitating night terrors

  • People who have chronic nightmares or debilitating night terrors are prone to get into an anxious and fitful situation at midnight. Sleeping with a trained service dog helps them to feel comfortable, as the dog can wake them up as soon as the symptoms occur.

Sleepwalking

  •  is also a dangerous type of sleep disorder. A well-trained service dog can reduce the potential risks of sleepwalking. For example, besides walking with the owner, they can think on his own and deal with the emergency — close the door and the window as well as clear any obstacles on the floor.
service dog for sleep apnea
service dog for sleep apnea

Thoughts From Service Dog and Sleep Experts

Experts — both dog behaviorists and sleep professionals — have weighed in on the benefits of having

a service animal available at night to help encourage good sleeping patterns.

Lovelia Horn, a dog trainer and owner of Every Creature Counts, believes it’s a good idea to sleep with your service animal nearby. “Service dogs are known to de-stress their owners by their constant

presence, and they can help wake owners up from nightmares,” she says. “They also provide their owner with safety from any unexpected experiences in the night.”

Clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Barbera often works with those dealing with PTSD and insomnia. She feels there are pros and cons to having your dog in bed with you.

“In particular, the dog may move around, which could disrupt an individual’s sleep,” she says.  “However, if the individual feels safer and less anxious with the dog right beside them, this could be

advantageous to improving sleep. It’s most important to consider the unique needs and/or characteristics of each individual and support dog.”

Dr. Peter Bailey, M.D. suggests having your service dog sleep in a bed next to your own so they are

readily available to alleviate stress. “Service dogs are trained to pick up on acute reactions from their

owners and can sense when they are in distress. They will instinctively jump onto the bed to comfort you if you suffer an issue during the night.”

Find out more about the amazing tasks that a service dog can handle with this TEDx talk by Sarah

Meikle, a trainer of service dogs for those with invisible disabilities such as PTSD.

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