Psychiatric Service Dogs CA are trained to help people with mental health issues. They can alert their handlers of a fire alarm or a knock at the door; act as a grounding force during anxiety attacks; and much more.
Often referred to as “man’s best friend,” mobility assistance dogs provide vital support to people with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and arthritis. These dogs help their partners move around the house, outside of the home and even into public spaces. They can push a wheelchair up or down a ramp, pull a person up in a chair and open or close doors for their partner. Depending on the level of independence required, a mobility aid dog can also assist with physical skill tasks, like retrieving, tugging, pulling clothing from the floor or manipulating lights, buttons and automatic doors.
These are only a few of the many benefits that have been identified in studies of individuals who are teamed with service dogs. However, these studies are limited in their scope, have small sample sizes and focus on specific disabilities and disease/disability categories. More research is needed with a wider variety of disabilities and greater diversity of participants to better understand the long-term benefits of being partnered with a service dog.
As mentioned, many service dogs wear special vests and harnesses to help them be easily recognized by the public. This does not mean that they cannot be petted or fed by a member of the public, but it is important to respect the handler and the dog’s space while they are at work. In most cases, it is also inappropriate to ask the handler personal questions, as this can be considered an invasion of privacy.
Aside from assisting their human partners in the performing of daily living skills, these animals provide emotional and spiritual support as well. The unconditional love and companionship they bring to their partners’ lives is unmatched. If you would like to learn more about how a mobility assistance dog could improve your quality of life, contact Williams Lift Co today.
Hearing Assistance
For individuals who have lost some or all of their hearing, these impeccably trained service dogs can provide invaluable support, giving their handlers the confidence and security they need. They can be trained to alert their owner to certain sounds, such as the sound of a smoke alarm, a ringing phone or an alarm clock. They can also be trained to alert their owners when water boils, as kettles produce high-frequency noise that is often difficult for someone with significant hearing loss to hear.
The specific tasks that a hearing aid dog is trained to perform are unique to each client, and can be customized to their individual needs and lifestyle. Throughout the application process, the admissions team will work closely with applicants to identify what “alerts” will help them most; this might include the sound of their name being called (i.e.: James), a knock at the door, or the sound of their baby’s cry.
Dogs are naturally able to detect higher frequencies than humans, and this sensitivity is what makes them a great choice for this type of service work. The ability of a dog to hear things that would otherwise be difficult for an individual with impaired hearing is an incredible life-changing resource, and one that many people take for granted.
It can be frightening to lose your hearing, and being unable to hear important warnings like smoke alarms or the ringing of a phone can leave you feeling vulnerable and at risk of preventable accidents. The addition of a service dog, who can be your literal second set of ears, provides added safety and peace of mind for you and your loved ones.
If you or a loved one are in need of a service dog, be sure to learn more about the training and placement processes that each organization offers by visiting their websites. Many of these organizations offer their services at no cost to the applicant.
The ADA National Network Service Animal Resource Hub has more information on the specific duties that hearing, service and psychiatric assistance dogs can be trained to perform as well as the laws around where they are allowed in public.
Psychiatric Assistance
If you have a mental health condition like schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, a psychiatric service dog can help mitigate your symptoms and increase your overall quality of life. Unlike emotional support animals, which simply provide companionship, PSDs are specifically trained to perform tasks that mitigate the effects of your condition. For example, if you have PTSD and experience hypervigilance—the sensation that something dangerous is lurking around every corner despite being in a safe environment—a psychiatric service dog can perform room checks for you to reassure you that your home or office is secure.
Psychiatric service dogs are trained to work with people with disabilities including physical, sensory, psychiatric, and intellectual. They are trained to do tasks that are directly related to their handler’s disability, such as reminding a person to take medication, providing safety checks or room searches, turning on lights for a person with PTSD or dissociative disorder, interrupting self-mutilation, or keeping a distracted or depressed individual safe from harm. In addition, psychiatric service dogs are trained to be focused on their handler and ignore distractions, so they can assist a person with mental illness when it’s most needed.
A psychiatric service dog can also provide a number of other benefits for people with mental illnesses and older adults. For adults with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, a psychiatric service animal can remind them to take their medication or complete daily routines. In addition, a service dog can prevent an adult from wandering or getting lost by retrieving them from unsafe situations and alerting others, or it can be equipped with a GPS locator to keep an adult with dementia or Alzheimer’s safe at home.
To get a psychiatric service dog, you’ll need documentation in the form of a psychiatric service dog letter from your medical professional and either self-train or enroll in an online psychiatric service dog training program like Pettable’s. This process can be lengthy, but once completed, your psychiatric service dog can improve your day-to-day quality of life and reduce your need for medications or other forms of care.
Medical Alert
Medical alert dogs, also known as seizure response or psychiatric service dogs, provide support for people with certain medical conditions like diabetes or seizures, and other medical problems such as POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). These dogs can serve as a reminder to check blood sugar, medication levels or even oxygen saturation. In addition, they can perform tasks such as retrieving medication, fetching a phone or waking someone who has trouble breathing.
These teams work hard to find dogs with the temperament, intelligence and drive necessary for scent detection. The rigorous training process at CMAC ensures that these remarkable dogs are prepared to be life-saving companions for their owners. Medical alert dogs are often able to detect subtle changes in the human body’s scent, and can recognize specific smells associated with medical conditions such as low blood sugar, seizures and migraines.
This study is the first of its kind to document that both specially trained medical alert dogs and those who began their service with no formal training for medical alert are able to reliably alert their handlers to multiple different conditions. Over half of participants reported that their dog alerted to multiple conditions and to other people as well.
The results of this study suggest that the level of alerting to one or more conditions may be related to how long a person has had their dog, and the degree to which their dog is able to anticipate an episode of their condition. This suggests that dogs who have been formally trained for medical alert may be more likely to consistently detect the scents associated with their particular condition, and thus are more reliable at anticipating an attack.
Despite this finding, it is important to note that the number of conditions that can be detected by a service dog is limited. This is because the majority of individuals with medical disabilities do not have a single symptom that would allow them to detect a change in their health. It is also important to distinguish between the different types of service animals, as some have restrictions placed on their public access, such as zoos and other places that have natural predators or prey for these dogs.
