Study urges owner support in canine epilepsy care

Veterinary practice teams may need to do more to support the owners of dogs living with epilepsy, a new study has suggested.

Researchers said there are “notable parallels” in caregiver burdens for both pets and children living with the condition, and hope their findings may help to change wider public perceptions of the issue.

The paper, published in Veterinary Record, surveyed 590 caregivers, from 29 countries, for dogs with idiopathic epilepsy, the most common form of the condition where repeated seizures occur without an identifiable cause.

The analysis was derived from a caregiver impact assessment based on a framework originally devised for the parents of children living with the disease.

Negative impacts

The study found more than one-fifth (21.02%) of participants reported negative impacts on both their physical and emotional health, as well as social functioning and work or finances. Commonly reported challenges included increased anxiety or worry, which was cited by 83.7% of participants, along with poorer sleep (68.8%), a deteriorating financial position (58.4%) and tiredness (57.1%).

Senior author Rowena Packer, an RVC senior lecturer in companion animal behaviour and welfare, said: “These results remind us that successful epilepsy management is not only about reducing seizures, but also about understanding and supporting the people who provide day to day care.

“We now need to think carefully about how veterinary teams can support caregiver well-being, whether through better information, practical advice, peer support network or new technologies that reduce the burden of caring for dogs with epilepsy.”

Help outcomes

The paper suggested that integrating owners’ challenges into clinical decision-making may help to improve outcomes for both them and their dogs.

It also argued that impacts linked to fear of not being present during a seizure, including sustained poor sleep, anxiety, and a reduced capacity to sustain employment could reflect the experiences of parents whose children are living with severe epilepsy.

But despite that and previous research also highlighting that issue, co-author Zoe Belshaw said they had not anticipated how many participants were “persistently anxious and sleep deprived” because of their pets’ conditions.

‘Incredibly tough’

Dr Belshaw added: “This research adds to a growing body of evidence that caring for a chronically ill pet can be incredibly tough, yet this form of caring remains very poorly societally recognised.

“We hope this study will do something to change that.”

The paper called for societal recognition of caregiver burdens to be prioritised in future research, along with improving seizure prediction and reducing frequency for the most severely affected animals.

It also argued the caregiver impact assessment could also be used to help assess the impact of other canine diseases.

Most participants in the study (58.3%) were UK-based, with the US (20.9%) and Germany (7.9%) the next most represented nations.