Service Dogs for Elderly Adults: Requirements, Benefits, Cost, and How to Find One

If your senior loved one has a visual impairment, hearing loss, or other disability, you’ve likely looked into many ways to make their lives easier. For animal lovers, a service dog can provide assistance in ways that are wonderful and perhaps even a little unexpected. It’s important to remember that service dogs fulfill a specific task — their highly specialized training makes them much more than a typical household companion.

From training to costs to time commitments, many factors affect the decision to get a service dog. If you’re thinking about how to get a service dog for the elderly loved one in your life, read on to learn more about these incredible animals and the many benefits they offer.

What can service dogs help seniors with?

Service dogs can help seniors with disabilities or mental health disorders by performing a variety of tasks. The following are just a few examples of the types of tasks a service dog can help a senior with:^[02,03]

• Reminding someone to take medication
• Alerting a deaf person to important sounds
• Guiding a person with vision impairments
• Providing stability to someone with limited mobility
• Picking up items for someone who uses a wheelchair
• Alerting someone of an upcoming panic attack or seizure
• Sensing an anxiety attack to help prevent or treat them
• Detecting night terrors to wake a person with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)

What’s the difference between service dogs, emotional support dogs, and therapy dogs?

Emotional support dogs and therapy dogs differ from service dogs in that they’re not trained in specific tasks, therefore they’re not considered service dogs under the ADA. However, psychiatric service dogs are trained to perform tasks to help people with mental illnesses, such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Here are some important distinctions between service, therapy, and emotional support dogs, per the ADA:

• A service dog is specifically trained to work with one person and perform a task to assist with their disability or mental illness.
• An emotional support dog solely provides comfort to someone with a mental illness.
• A therapy dog often comforts many people and requires a handler to be present.

Like other dogs, service dogs provide companionship and joy. However, service dogs offer many specific, research-supported benefits for seniors with disabilities, like:^[04,05]

• Improved mental, emotional, and social wellbeing
• Increased independence and self-esteem
• Improved physical health
• Reduced loneliness and stress
• Decreased reliance on health care services (fewer doctor appointments and hospital visits)

How can a service dog benefit family caregivers?

As a caregiver, you’re likely looking for a service dog to make your loved one’s life easier, but there are benefits for caregivers as well. In addition to a loved one’s health concerns, caregivers often experience their own health problems and an increase in stress due to added responsibilities in their lives.

Helper dogs for elderly adults provide benefits for all. Emotional support, general family support, bonding, and trust that the dog will be there when the caregiver cannot are some of the most reassuring benefits of a service dog.

Let our care assessment guide you

Yes, any dog can become a service dog, as long as the dog is trained to complete tasks relating to the senior’s disability or condition.^[02] You can either train your dog yourself to perform tasks for your loved one’s needs, or get them professionally trained.

To train a dog yourself, you can register for an online service dog training school like Service Dog Training School International or U.S. Service Animals. Or, you can find a local service dog training school to get them professionally trained.

Depending on the tasks your loved one needs help with, you’ll find numerous organizations throughout the country that can help disabled adults find the right service dog:

• The Guide Dog Foundation is a national organization that specializes in matching adults who are classified as legally or totally blind with a specially trained canine companion. After a meticulous matching process, the potential owner attends a training program to even better match their needs and personality to the right dog.
• Assistance Dogs International is a coalition of nonprofit organizations across the country. They help connect people looking for assistance with guide dogs, hearing dogs, and service dogs that can be trained for other tasks.
• America’s Vet Dogs works specifically with veterans who have received an honorable discharge, as well as some first responders. These service dogs can be trained to support a specific disability, including helping to mitigate the effects of PTSD.

Seniors living with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia can benefit greatly from a canine companion. Pet therapy sessions alone can reduce agitation and promote social interaction in seniors, according to the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias.^[06]

Since owners need to be responsible for their dogs, you may be wondering if your loved one with dementia would qualify for a service dog. They can, but service dogs for dementia patients may require additional training. For instance, a dementia service dog must be able to help them in times of confusion.

Service dogs can help seniors with dementia by performing various tasks, like the following:

• Waking dementia patients up and reminding them when it’s bedtime
• Reminding them where household items are
• Bringing them medications on a schedule
• Soothing common dementia symptoms like agitation and anxiety
• Preventing wandering and helping them get home safely

Additionally, because certain temperaments and energy levels are more suitable for helping a senior with dementia, certain breeds make better service dogs for dementia patients. For instance, a golden retriever or Boston terrier may be a better fit, because they’re friendlier and easier to train than other breeds.

Talk with a Senior Living Advisor

Already-trained service dogs can be expensive, with the National Service Dogs Registry citing an average cost of around $25,000.^[07] While this is certainly an investment, some organizations have grants and scholarships to help with costs. In addition to cost, many organizations have waitlists of up to three years.^[08]

Reputable service dog training organizations will expect recipients, also known as handlers, of a service dog to do the following:

• Pay for the training costs
• Care for the dog across its lifetime
• Be capable of handling the dog
• Attend training sessions with the dog

However, remember that any dog can become a service dog with the right training. So, if you already have a fairly young pet, you may be able to train it yourself. Look for affordable service dog trainers or nonprofits, like the ones above, in your area that may help you train your dog.

Yes, much like in any residence, the ADA requires senior living communities to accept service dogs, including psychiatric service dogs. However, the same doesn’t apply to emotional support dogs. Therefore, if you or a loved one has an emotional support animal, you must check with each prospective community’s pet guidelines.

Fortunately, a majority of senior living communities are pet-friendly. Some communities even have visiting therapy dogs to help decrease stress and feelings of isolation in senior residents.

Read more:Assisted Living and Service Dogs for Elderly Adults

There may come a time when a senior can no longer care for their pet appropriately. Be sure to look for signs that you may need to step in to help care for your elderly loved one’s service dog. You can even set up a pet trust for your loved one’s animal. A pet trust can give you and your loved one peace of mind, as you know exactly what will happen to the animal when your loved one can no longer support it.

If your loved one is struggling to care for themselves or their companion animal, it may be time to look for other signs that a senior is ready for assisted living or, if the senior has a dementia diagnosis, signs they need memory care. If this is the case, consider reaching out to A Place for Mom’s Senior Living Advisors. They help seniors find the right senior living community for their specific wants and needs, and this service comes at no cost to you or your family.