The role of diabetic alert dogs in the management of impaired hypoglycaemia awareness

Do dogs sense hypoglycaemia?

“… conducted an online survey including 36 owners of trained diabetes alert dogs (23 children, mean age 8.4±3.1 years; 13 adults, mean age 36.4±14.1 years). Since owning a diabetes alert dog, the patients experienced significantly fewer severe and mild hypoglycaemic events, and had significantly decreased HbA 1c levels and improved psychosocial outcomes compared with the time before they owned the dog (Table ). A study by Rooney et al .…”

“…Gonder-Frederick et al [5] conducted an online survey including 36 owners of trained diabetes alert dogs (23 children, mean age 8.4AE3.1 years; 13 adults, mean age 36.4AE14.1 years). Since owning a diabetes alert dog, the patients experienced significantly fewer severe and mild hypoglycaemic events, and had significantly decreased HbA 1c levels and improved psychosocial outcomes compared with the time before they owned the dog [5] (Table 2 [5,6,8,10,[16][17][18][19]). A study by Rooney et al [8], where 17 patients with diabetes aged 5-66 years (median 41 years) owning a diabetes alert dog were interviewed, confirmed these improvements in clinical and quality-of-life measures ( Table 2); however, these two studies on diabetes alert dogs relied on self-reported retrospective information of a heterogeneously aged cohort.…”

“…Three case reports and three original studies reported on untrained dogs, describing alterations in the behaviour of dogs while their owners had hypoglycaemic episodes (Table ). Two case reports and five original studies reported on diabetes alert dogs (Table ). One case report described experiences with both untrained and trained dogs (Tables and ).…”

“…The abilities of a diabetes alert dog include recognizing and alerting the patient during daytime and nocturnal hypoglycaemia, fetching a blood glucose testing kit or carbohydrate source, and triggering an alarm in an emergency . Although there are no national standards or government regulations for training , diabetes alert dogs have been trained in the USA since 2003 . In this scenario the dogs are placed in patients' homes at the age of 2–24 months .…”

“…In this scenario the dogs are placed in patients' homes at the age of 2–24 months . In the UK, Medical Detection Dogs, an organization dedicated to training diabetes alert dogs, recommends 18–24 months of training . In Germany, training programmes have existed since 2007.…”