Ortiz Rafael, Liporace Joyce
Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Epilepsy Behav. 2005 Jun;6(4):620-2. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2005.02.012.
Studies have demonstrated that "seizure-alert dog" owners with epilepsy exhibit improvement in seizure rates. One of the most difficult aspects for patients with epilepsy is the unpredictability of seizures. We evaluated the detection abilities of seizure-alert dogs in an inpatient epilepsy care unit where patients were undergoing continuous computer-assisted EEG. Between March and May of 2004 we monitored two patients who owned "seizure dogs" in the Epilepsy Care Unit at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. Both patients were accompanied by their "seizure dogs" during their admission, as the patients felt more secure with the dogs. The dogs' performance in alerting before a seizure was poor for patient 1 and misleading for patient 2. In our limited but objective experience, the "seizure dogs" were not as effective as previously thought in predicting the seizure activity. At the same time we must be fair and recognize the limitations that the environment of the Epilepsy Care Unit places not only on patients but also on seizure-alert dogs. Similar studies (in epilepsy monitoring units) of larger samples of patients are needed to determine if these trained dogs are responsible for clinical improvement in epilepsy patients.
研究表明，患有癫痫的“癫痫发作预警犬”主人的癫痫发作率有所改善。癫痫患者最困难的方面之一是癫痫发作的不可预测性。我们在一个住院癫痫护理单元评估了癫痫发作预警犬的检测能力，该单元的患者正在接受连续的计算机辅助脑电图监测。2004年3月至5月期间，我们在费城托马斯杰斐逊大学医院的癫痫护理单元监测了两名拥有“癫痫犬”的患者。两名患者住院期间都有他们的“癫痫犬”陪伴，因为患者有狗在身边会感觉更安心。对于患者1，狗在癫痫发作前发出警报的表现很差，而对于患者2则产生了误导。根据我们有限但客观的经验，“癫痫犬”在预测癫痫活动方面并不像之前认为的那么有效。与此同时，我们必须公正地认识到癫痫护理单元的环境不仅给患者带来的限制，也给癫痫发作预警犬带来的限制。需要对更多患者样本进行类似研究（在癫痫监测单元），以确定这些经过训练的狗是否对癫痫患者的临床改善有作用。
