Leo recovered from the dementia with the stem cell treatment.
23 June 2018
By Julie Power
Therapy dog Leo (click here) appeared happy to be patted and stroked by nursing home residents with dementia until he started showing symptoms eerily similar to theirs.
Leo would forget where his food bowl was located or he'd wait at the wrong door when the door bell rang, said his owner Fiona Gibbs of Pymble. Initially the family thought the behaviour was cute.
Then Leo "became scarily aggressive" and didn't recognise Mrs Gibbs or the family's five children.
"At one stage, we were almost defending ourselves with brooms. He was like a rabid dog," she said.
Now, three years later, Leo, a Pomapoo (a mix of pomeranian and poodle), is back to his normal placid self after a stem cell transplant appears to have reversed his canine cognitive dysfunction or dementia. This success is giving researchers hope of finding a cure for human dementia....
