It may seem strange for a Decatur veterinarian to be writing about arthritis, but did you know that arthritis isn’t limited to humans? Unfortunately, it’s true. Quite a few animals can develop painful arthritis, as well, including your dog or cat. And, since certain pets, like dogs, are active companions to “their” humans during many daily activities, arthritis can be especially disabling. Arthritis in humans can make simple activities, like taking a walk and climbing stairs intensely painful. Because dogs frequently accompany their owners, dogs can experience the same kind of pain and debilitating problems doing the activities that their owners do.

Just going for a walk, let alone catching a frisbee or running in the ocean waves, can be very difficult and intensely painful for a dog with arthritis. In other words, arthritis can take the fun out of your dog’s “purpose” in life…to have fun! As a attentive veterinarian in Decatur I am relieved to let you know that treatment for canine arthritis is not solely limited to the use of drugs for pain. Dogs suffering from arthritis may be able to benefit from the physiotherapy that helps to improve joint mobility, just like humans are. Physiotherapy, in humans, helps to lessen arthritic pain and improve function of the affected joints and limbs. You may be wondering how physiotherapy affects canine joints and limbs, as well as what therapy is most effective.

Though physiotherapy for dogs has been available for a while now, until recently there hasn’t been much research done to satisfactorily document its effects on canine arthritis. But, according to research results published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research, confirmation of the efficacy of physiotherapy in decreasing arthritic pain and immobility has been made by researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.

The researchers used a expressly-designed treadmill and delicate computer algorithms to analyze the movements of the joints in the front and back legs of dogs while the dogs performed three different types of exercises: walking uphill, walking downhill and walking over low obstacles.

The experiments showed that the three movement protocols had express and explicit effects on the motion of the dogs’ joints. Walking uphill caused notably greater bending at the hip, as opposed to walking downhill, which caused the hip to be less bent and the tarsal joint to be less extended. However, the most significant effects came when the dogs walked over low obstacles. This resulted in additional bending of all joints except the hip and shoulder, and greater extensions of the carpal and stifle joints.

You may be curious, at this point, what all of of this means for your dog? First of all, it indicates that walking uphill is an easy exercise that you could provide to help to improve your dog’s joint flexibility, especially at the hip joint, and that adding low obstacles could help to improve the bending of the joints in the forelimbs and hind limbs. It is important to mention, though, that adding low obstacles should be avoided if your dog has recently had surgery for the tibia, because such activity could result in increased bending of the joints and potentially strain the tendon that joins the knee to the shin.

And, as a Decatur veterinarian who loves dogs, I would like to make one final suggestion for “man’s best friend,” since the study indicated that walking downhill wasn’t  shown to be effective anyway, after you’ve exercised your dog uphill, perhaps a ride in the car back down the hill would be a nice treat!

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