Man's Best Friend Is Healing Veterans

Short Wave

NPR

Science, Life Sciences, News, Nature, Daily News, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Service dogs have long helped veterans with physical disabilities. While there have been stories about veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder being transformed by service animals, the peer-reviewed science wasn't there to back up the claims. Health reporter Stephanie O'Neill reports that's changed in recent years. Studies suggest service dogs can be effective at easing PTSD symptoms and used alongside other treatments. Now, the PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act will help connect specially trained dogs to some veterans with symptoms of traumatic stress.

Read more of Stephanie's reporting: https://n.pr/32bXn8E

This reporting was done in partnership with Kaiser Health News.

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Transcript

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0:20.1	That number is 1-800-656-4673.
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0:34.4	Alright, here's the show.
0:37.2	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:42.2	Air Force veteran Danielle Clark Gutierrez is 33 years old.
0:46.2	She lives in the Southern California city of Whittier with her husband and three kids,
0:50.6	and with a yellow Labrador named Lisa.
0:55.6	With Lisa, we take bike rides and we go down to the park or go to Home Depot or just normal,
1:00.5	like a grocery shopping, normal people things that I get to do that I can get to do before Lisa.
1:05.6	Danielle has PTSD.
1:07.3	She went through some pretty traumatic experiences while in the service.
1:11.3	Yeah, the stats are pretty eye-opening.
1:14.2	The VA, the Department of Veterans Affairs, says that up to 20% of veterans
1:20.2	who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq have PTSD in a given year.
1:24.0	And I think often when we hear about trauma and the military,
1:27.2	we mostly think about veterans coming home with battle-caused PTSD,
1:31.4	especially since until recently we were involved in war for two decades.
	...

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