Neurological Injury
Injury to nervous tissue has the potential to produce the most debilitating types of dysfunction, reducing or even eliminating sensory and motor processes. Nervous tissue can be injured through several means but the types of neurological injury treated by physiotherapy have mechanical causes – entrapment or trauma. In the former nervous tissue becomes entrapped in a confined anatomical space and is commonly referred to as a “trapped nerve”. I commonly encounter and treat these injuries in horses’ necks. Nervous damage through trauma is caused by a direct mechanical insult to the tissue or by indirect forces applied to surrounding structures being transmitted to the nervous tissue, for example horses have been known to develop radial paralysis after surgery in which they have been recumbent for some time.
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Physio for Wounds
In this case history is a 5 year old novice event horse who received an injection in the neck from the vet. Unfortunately this introduced a Clostridia infection which set up a gas gangrene which tracked down the neck and into the pectoral area at the front of the chest. The gangrene resulted in necrosis of skin and some of the muscle. These photographs were taken 12 months post infection and it is remarkable that he survived. He spent several weeks under intensive therapy at Bristol Veterinary Hospital and was not expected to survive let alone compete again.
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Tendon Injuries
In the following case history is an example of bilateral SDFT lesions in the front legs of a racehorse. Again, physiotherapy treatment should be sought as soon as possible after the injury has occurred. However, in this horse physiotherapy was not sought until 5 weeks post-injury and significant adhesion between the SDFT and DDFT had occurred.
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Physiotherapy Techniques
It's not often I have to get down on my knees to treat a horse! I had to, however, when I was asked to examine Josephine, a delightful, two-year-old miniature Shetland filly, who was suffering from chronic back pain.
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