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PIP and Assistance Dog for PTSD
Has anyone got experience of / comments relating to PIP Mobility 1(j) or Daily Living 9(d) when using an assistance dog to complete journeys and help with social interaction when the assistance dog is for PTSD rather than sensory impairment?
no, but I anticipated that such a dog would be really useful for a PTSD sufferer - indeed, as I understand it, many have dogs that weren’t specially trained for that but become that by virtue of being a dog, and trustworthy…..
Unfortunately the legal definition in the regs of an assistance dog is ‘a dog trained to guide or assist a person with a sensory impairment’
Schedule 1 of the PIP regs limits this by specifically defining ‘assistance dog’ as ‘a dog trained to guide or assist a person with a sensory impairment’.
& also ‘prompting’ & ‘social support’ are both defined as being provided by a ‘person’.
I don’t see any reason why an emotional support animal could not be an ‘aid’ but that is not necessarily a massive help in the context of the two activities you mention.
Perhaps other arguments such as whether activities can be completed reliably & assistance required from another person (even if not being provided) might be stronger?
thank you
Clutching at straws but could you argue that PTSD impairs your senses eg if you were having a flashback it might impair you ability to see/hear what is going on.
The definition of sensory impairment is when one of your senses; sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste and spatial awareness, is no longer normal. I think that could fit into some of the symptoms of PTSD.
Just a thought…
That argument might work in respect of flashbacks I think, depending on the specific facts (and whether the dog is trained as such) so maybe worth exploring…..
I think another argument that might be worth making/testing is this;
- if an assistance dog for PTSD does not meet the definition of assistance dog in Sch. 1, then equally, an assistance dog is most certainly not an aid as defined in reg. 2 - a living thing cannot be a ‘device’.
- it follows that the assessment of the claimant’s ability to perform an activity must be carried out on the basis of their ability to perform it without the assistance dog.
That argument might work in respect of flashbacks I think, depending on the specific facts (and whether the dog is trained as such) so maybe worth exploring…..
I think another argument that might be worth making/testing is this;
- if an assistance dog for PTSD does not meet the definition of assistance dog in Sch. 1, then equally, an assistance dog is most certainly not an aid as defined in reg. 2 - a living thing cannot be a ‘device’.
- it follows that the assessment of the claimant’s ability to perform an activity must be carried out on the basis of their ability to perform it without the assistance dog.
I was thinking along these lines yesterday but came to the conclusion that I didn’t think it would work quite as neatly as I’d hoped. My reading eventually was that the fact that the legislation tells us what to do with things that are aids/appliances (i.e. assess the claimant’s ability whilst using these) does not inevitably tell us that we must do the opposite for things that are not aids/appliances. The legislation is silent on this. An interpretation suggesting that claimants should be assessed on their abilities whilst using other ‘non-aids’ available also would be just as logical. If your analysis was followed then the cases re. people dressing whilst sat on their bed would perhaps have gone in the other direction - as the bed was not an aid then the person should be assessed on their ability to dress without the bed?
That said - there’s no harm in giving a go to see what the UT came back with.
I ended up feeling that the best way to go about it was to come at it from a ‘reasonable standard’ viewpoint and consider how frequently claimant was unable to bring the dog with them and thus unable to perform the activities. Or also look at whether the claimant is performing the activity to a reasonable standard even with the dog - i.e. the dog may well help but does it actually remove all of the difficulties the claimant is having.
I think I’d be arguing for a purposive approach on interpretation - but accept that it might need to go to UT to get anywhere.
I think the scenario we are looking at here is a world away from the intent behind legislation which says “if you normally use ordinary prescription glasses to read/drive you are assessed for that activity as if wearing them” or the decision of Judge Jacobs on aids and sitting down on a bed to dress - i.e. on the basis that significant numbers of people without disabilities sit on the bed to dress (as I do myself) because it is easier.
What we have here is a wholly unusual situation - a person who is significantly disabled, who can perform certain activities although only with the help of a specialist assistance dog. But an assistance dog that does not meet the terms of the definition in Sch. 1 - so they are denied that route of point scoring.
I suppose what I am arguing is that one should apply the same logic - but in reverse - as is used in the activity of preparing food. The UT has (rightly, in my view) held that the ‘simple meal’ is a standardised, non-culturally specific, non-subjective meal, so that person B, with precisely the same level of functional impairment as person A, should not be able to score points on the basis that their culturally-specific meal involves three times as much preparation as person A’s. Following that logic through, as a result of PTSD, persons A and B both have identical functional impairment with the activities of engaging socially and planning and following journeys. Person A scores points because they cannot perform the activity without the assistance of another person and there is no service that can provide them with an assistance dog. Person B does not, because they have such a dog - but the dog does not meet the definition in Sch 1.
Can’t be right, surely?
I think I’d be arguing for a purposive approach on interpretation - but accept that it might need to go to UT to get anywhere.
I think the scenario we are looking at here is a world away from the intent behind legislation which says “if you normally use ordinary prescription glasses to read/drive you are assessed for that activity as if wearing them” or the decision of Judge Jacobs on aids and sitting down on a bed to dress - i.e. on the basis that significant numbers of people without disabilities sit on the bed to dress (as I do myself) because it is easier.
What we have here is a wholly unusual situation - a person who is significantly disabled, who can perform certain activities although only with the help of a specialist assistance dog. But an assistance dog that does not meet the terms of the definition in Sch. 1 - so they are denied that route of point scoring.
I suppose what I am arguing is that one should apply the same logic - but in reverse - as is used in the activity of preparing food. The UT has (rightly, in my view) held that the ‘simple meal’ is a standardised, non-culturally specific, non-subjective meal, so that person B, with precisely the same level of functional impairment as person A, should not be able to score points on the basis that their culturally-specific meal involves three times as much preparation as person A’s. Following that logic through, as a result of PTSD, persons A and B both have identical functional impairment with the activities of engaging socially and planning and following journeys. Person A scores points because they cannot perform the activity without the assistance of another person and there is no service that can provide them with an assistance dog. Person B does not, because they have such a dog - but the dog does not meet the definition in Sch 1.
Can’t be right, surely?
In terms of planning and following journeys I can kind of see where you are coming from. Essentially you’d be making the same argument as in RF - that people should not be scoring different points for the same kind of assistance depending on whether their difficulties have a mental or physical cause - why does a dog count for sensory impairment but not for PTSD?
I’m not sure if the same argument holds for the engaging socially descriptor though? As there aren’t any references to aids/appliances/assistance dogs. So I think that you would be left arguing that the prompting or social support that an assistance dog is able to provide is equivalent to that of a human. Without wanting to take anything away from the benefit people may get from assistance dogs I think that is going to be an uphill struggle. The way I see it the assistance dog keeps the person in an emotional state where they are able to do the activity without the need for prompting or social support - it doesn’t actually do those things itself?
Thank you all for these points. Really very helpful.
I think assistance dogs are increasingly used by ex-military personnel eg through schemes such as Help for Heroes, although my case is not such a case.