The Royal Veterinary College, University of London (RVC) has developed the first ever app that allows dog owners to monitor and improve the lives of pets that suffer from epilepsy.

Epilepsy is the most common long-term neurological disorder seen in dogs affecting around 50,000 canines in the UK.  Now, the ‘RVC Pet Epilepsy Tracker’, lets dog owners record seizure activity and medication requirements on their mobile phone and tablet devices for the first time.

The app also contains up-to-date veterinary knowledge on managing epilepsy, to help increase owners’ understanding of the condition. This includes everything from what epilepsy is, how it is diagnosed and identifying different seizure types, to practical advice on what to do when a seizure strikes. It also includes functions such as reminders for when prescribed medications are required.

The app is also set to revolutionise the understanding of how epilepsy progresses in individual dogs, and patterns of seizure activity, as owners can share their seizure and medication diaries directly with researchers at the RVC, to be stored on a large anonymous database. This will allow long term studies of seizure activity that researchers have previously been unable to obtain data for, for a large number of dogs.

Watch the video below for more information from the app’s developers – and RVC Canine Epilepsy Research team members – Prof. Holger Volk and Dr Rowena Packer.

www.rvcpetepilepsytracker.co.uk

Download the RVC Epilepsy Tracker App free of charge to your tablet or smart phone here:

For Apple devices: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rvc-pet-epilepsy-tracker/id992917809?mt=8

For Android devices: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rvc.phonegap