August 31, 2001
Community Resources, Hypoglycemia
Question from Liberty, Indiana, USA:
I have heard about service dogs being used to alert people diabetes prone to nighttime or waking hypoglycaemia. Where can I find out more about this?
Answer:
There have indeed been reports of people with diabetes depending on dogs to detect nocturnal hypoglycemia but what the dogs are really sensing is sweating as part of the counter-regulatory response. The GlucoWatch alarm will clearly be a better indicator, and there are devices (both existing and in development) that will detect sweat as some form of skin conductance. Obviously too, these indirect sweat based methods would need to be calibrated for ambient temperature and humidity.
DOB
Additional comments from David Mendosa, A Writer on the Web:
I see from a couple of references on the Web that service dogs for hypoglycemia assistance are known to exist. A good place to start looking for them would be the Service Dog Directory.
DM
[Editor’s comment: The Sleep Sentry will be available again in October, 2001. My understanding is that there are fewer false alarms than in the previous model, and it is working quite well in the clinical trials.
SS]
