Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Effect of an intervention of exercise on sleep and seizure frequency in idiopathic epileptic dogs.
- Journal:
- The Journal of small animal practice
- Year:
- 2023
- Authors:
- Grady, K et al.
- Affiliation:
- Department of Medical Sciences · United States
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
This study looked at how increasing exercise affects sleep and seizure frequency in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy, which is a type of epilepsy with no known cause. Sixty-nine dogs on anti-seizure medication participated in a six-month trial, where some dogs were encouraged to be more active while others were not. The results showed that the dogs that increased their activity had slightly more seizures each month and their sleep quality improved a little bit. Overall, while the dogs that exercised more had a small increase in seizures and sleep scores, the treatment did not seem to help reduce seizure frequency.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to compare sleep and seizure frequency between epileptic dogs prescribed a 20% activity increase and epileptic dogs not prescribed an activity increase. METHODS: Sixty-nine dogs receiving anti-epileptic drug therapy were enrolled in a 6-month prospective, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial with an intention-to-treat analysis. A canine activity monitoring device was used to measure activity levels and sleep scores. RESULTS: Using an intention-to-treat analysis, the treatment group had an average of 0.381 more seizures per month (95% CI: 0.09 to 0.68) compared with the control group, although the difference in seizure days per month was not statistically significant. In a subgroup analysis of dogs whose activity increased by at least 10%, partial compliers had 0.719 more seizures per month (95% CI: 0.22 to 1.22) and 0.581 seizure days per month (95% CI: 0.001 to 1.16) compared with the control group. Sleep scores increased by 1.2% in the treatment compared with the control group (95% CI: 0.2 to 2.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Seizure frequency and sleep score increased slightly, but significantly, in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy prescribed an increase in activity, compared with a control group.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36368312/