Vet Advice: Relieving Your Dog's Arthritis
The easy run becomes a stiff walk; the jump to a favorite chair is no longer possible; lying down is accompanied by a deep groan. As our dogs age, things that were once second nature become an effort. Today, thanks to advances in veterinary medicine and companion animal care, many dogs are living to a ripe old age. On the downside, that longevity also increases the odds that they’ll suffer...
Hydrotherapy for Dogs: A Growing Trend in Canine Physical Therapy
Humans have known for millennia about the healing properties of water for injuries and aching joints. But it’s only recently that dogs have begun to enjoy the benefits of hydrotherapy. Is it simply another pet health craze, or does it work? What is Hydrotherapy? Hydrotherapy literally means water therapy and can refer to any therapeutic use of water to aid or improve health. For humans, hydrotherapy includes exercises such as...
What is Laser Therapy?
Laser therapy is a specific form of light-based therapeutic intervention that utilizes controlled applications of low-intensity, coherent and monochromatic light (i.e., LASER) in humans and animals to produce clinically-beneficial outcomes. Laser therapy has previously been known by many names, including 'Low Level Laser Therapy‘, 'Cold Laser‘, 'Soft Laser‘, and 'Laser Phototherapy‘. The National Center for Biotechnology Information now recognizes ‘photobiomodulation’ as the official MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) term, specifically defined...
Osteoarthritis in Dogs
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis in dogs, affecting approximately a quarter of the population. It is a chronic joint disease characterized by loss of joint cartilage, thickening of the joint capsule and new bone formation around the joint (osteophytosis) and ultimately leading to pain and limb dysfunction. Majority of OA in dog occur secondarily to developmental orthopedic disease, such as cranial cruciate ligament disease, hip dysplasia,...
Reversing Osteoarthritis
This is a repurposed blog. I wrote this for https://caninearthritis.co.uk/, but I like it, and I've wanted to use if here for a while now. So here it is! Not too long ago, I received a request from a medical journal editor asking if I would like to contribute an article on the topic of ‘Can Osteoarthritis be Reversed?’. Now, before you get excited thinking that I might be an expert...
Canine Physical Therapy
There are many types of non-traditional therapies that benefit dogs! Canine sports medicine and rehabilitation is a relatively new specialty in veterinary medicine. Physical therapy (also called physiotherapy) has long been used for humans to help preserve, enhance or restore physical function impaired by disease, surgery or aging. What many people don’t realize is that physical therapy and rehabilitation can also enhance and restore function for our dogs. The dogs...
HYDROTHERAPY FOR DOGS – GUIDE, COST, BENEFITS
Hydrotherapy for dogs is a medical practice that uses water to relieve dogs of certain joint and bone pains and problems. Hydrotherapy or more specifically, canine hydrotherapy basically uses the main properties of the water namely buoyancy, viscosity, hydrostatic pressure and resistance. Buoyancy is the ability or tendency of a body to stay afloat or rise to the top of a liquid or gas. Such properties of water enable dogs...
Arthritis Management
MANAGING OSTEOARTHRITIS Osteoarthritis is common amongst both dogs and people—it’s one of the things about which we can commiserate with our furry companions. Put simply, “osteoarthritis” means “bony joint inflammation.” That’s an oversimplified representation of a complex degenerative process, but that’s the basic idea. Just like in people, arthritis is the result of bony changes within joints; once the cartilaginous “brake pads” have worn down, bone grinds on bone, resulting...