 Psychiatric Service Animals
Service animals are an important accommodation for many people with disabilities, including individuals with psychiatric disabilities. While service animals were originally trained to assist those with visual impairments, they have become increasingly common for people with a wide range of disabilities – including post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, panic disorder and other mental illnesses, autism, intellectual disabilities, and epilepsy, diabetes, hearing impairments and other physical disabilities. Using these animals has enabled many people with disabilities to participate in everyday activities such as work, education, recreation and travel.
Psychiatric service animals help people with mental illnesses in many ways. For example, service animals may alleviate psychiatric symptoms by calming the handler and reducing physical and mental effects such as anxiety, fear, flashbacks, hypervigilance, hallucinations, intrusive imagery, nightmares, muscle tension, trembling, nausea and memory loss.
The ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Act and the Air Carrier Access Act all require that people with disabilities be permitted to use service animals in a variety of settings. These include places of employment; courts, benefits offices, police stations and other public services buildings; stores, movie theaters, homeless shelters, medical offices and other places of public accommodation; housing; airports and air carriers.
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