Episode Details

Episode 40: Emotional Support Animals.

Service Animals vs Emotional Support Animals, meet Ronica and Fred, HTN medications at night, jokes about being 40. 

Today is February 15, 2021.

We hope you had a beautiful Valentine’s Day. Today I’d like to share some information that may be not so new anymore, but for some people it may be new. It’s about hypertension chronotherapy. An article published in AAFP News in November 2019 explains that taking hypertension medication at bedtime improves cardiovascular risk. This was a large prospective study that compared taking meds at bedtime vs taking meds in the morning. It was called The Hygia Chronotherapy Trial. It was originally published in October 2019 in the European Heart Journal. 

The study was conducted in Spain (ole!), and involved almost 20,000 patients with hypertension who were divided into two groups: One group took all their hypertension medications at bedtime, and another group took all their hypertension medications in the morning. In the next 6 years, 1,752 participants experienced cardiovascular-related death, myocardial infarction, coronary revascularization, heart failure or stroke. And the good news is that the bedtime medication group showed an improved blood pressure control and lower risk than the morning medication group. Taking BP medications at bedtime dropped the death rate by 45%. Incidence of myocardial infarction, stroke and heart failure were all significantly reduced. Taking thiazides at bedtime may be challenging, on the bright side, the study also found that moving only one medication to bedtime is still beneficial. 

This is Rio Bravo qWeek, your weekly dose of knowledge brought to you by the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program from Bakersfield, California. Our program is affiliated with UCLA, and it’s sponsored by Clinica Sierra Vista, Let Us Be Your Healthcare Home. 

Emotional Support Animals

Arreaza: Our guest does not need introduction because you have listened to her voice in several episodes, especially in our recent episode about menopause. Welcome, Valerie Civelli, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Random question, what is the farthest place you have visited? What will be talking about today?

Civelli: Emotional Support Animals (ESA). Many people with disabilities use a service animal in order to fully participate in everyday life. Dogs can be trained to perform many important tasks to assist people with disabilities, such as providing stability for a person who has difficulty walking, picking up items for a person who uses a wheelchair, preventing a child with autism from wandering away, or alerting a person who has hearing loss when someone is approaching from behind.

Arreaza: So, is it like a service animal? 

Civelli: Service animals and emotional support animals are not the same, so be sure to note the different. According to the APA, American Psychology Association:  Species: Any animal can be an emotional support animal. Under federal law, only dogs and miniature horses can be service animals[2]. Such is the case of Abrea Hensley who has flown from Nebraska to Chicago with her miniature mare, Flirty in August 2019. 

Arreaza: There was revival on the topic again. A story went viral in February 2020, one year ago, as Ronica Froese flew from Michigan to Ontario (California) with her service animal who is a miniature horse named Freckle Butt Fred, or Fred for short. They traveled together in first class. The picture went viral online, and it created positive and negative comments among travelers and internauts. Miniature horses were approved as service animals in 2011 by the ADA (Americans with Disability Act).

Civelli: Purpose: An emotional support animal assists through its presence alone. A service animal is specially trained to perform tasks for someone with a disability. Training: An emotional support animal re