It will dramatically reduce the stress on this young man's family as they deal with the issues of not only epilepsy, but autism as well. Seizure response dogs are a special type of service dog, specifically trained to help someone who has epilepsy or a seizure disorder. The Chelsea Hutchison Foundation is currently fundraising to be able to provide a $2500 grant to Samuel's family. Due to the differing needs between each case, every potential seizure dog receives specialized training.
Samuel's family lives in a constant state of exhausting worry and stress. Everyone in the family participates in keeping a constant eye on Samuel both in terms of his flight risk and anxiety attacks, both seizure triggers. Samuel's seizure-response service dog will be trained to keep him from wandering away, finding him in a crowd, halting repetitive behaviors, calming and preventing meltdowns, in addition to detecting and responding to his seizures.
It will help keep Samuel safe and bring some peace to his family. He is a high flight risk which means that if he has an idea to go somewhere, he will just go. Samuel is in the superior gifted range, can write perfectly in multiple languages, plays the piano and has perfect pitch and has a photographic memory, but he is challenged by the world around him.
Our goal is to get life-saving measures in line for all who could benefit from them. By raising SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) awareness, our hope is to get epilepsy research on the radar. Most believe that if you have seizures you can take a pill and be cured. Truth is that only 1/3 of those with seizures are controlled by medication. For many, multiple seizures are an every-day part of their life. 1 in 26 will be diagnosed with epilepsy in their lifetime.
