A study by the University of Belfast showed that in addition to the fact that dogs have the ability to drive away thieves or to be guides for visually impaired people, they also have the ability to predict epileptic seizures in humans.
Epileptic seizures are associated with a number of specific odors that dogs can recognize, according to the authors of the study in the journal MDPI Animals. There are numerous claims from before that dogs show changes in their behavior before the attack, but until now these claims have not been verified by any scientific study.
Scientists, together with a biologist from the University of Beelfast, Neil Powell, exposed 19 dogs without experience with epilepsy to odors that are characteristic of the three phases of the attack. These are odors that appear in the patient’s sweat just before the attack. All 19 dogs, who were of different ages, genders and breeds, showed changes in behavior when they smelled these odors.
“Some even ran back and forth to other family members to warn them that the person was in danger of having an atack without any prior training,” Powell said, adding that dog training itself is not too difficult and could be done within a few weeks. As he also reminded, depending on the breed, dogs have 10,000 to 100,000 times more powerful sense of smell than humans.
Their research could serve to develop an early warning system for more than 65 million people living with epislepsy, a large percentage of whom fail to control seizures with medication.
They plan to continue their research, which, according to Powell, could result in the development of an electronic device that would be sensitive to certain biomarkers that precede epileptic seizures. Until then, people who have severe attacks and live in fear of going for a walk without escort should be entitled to a trained dog that can help them by announcing an attack and thus save them from injury or even potential sudden death.
Source: rs.n1info.com