What’s Involved in an Animal Physiotherapy Treatment?

Generally, a Veterinary Physiotherapy treatment is divided into three main sections, the assessment, treatment and home exercises. Each section should complement each other harmoniously. It is important in all sections to treat the animal as a whole and not just focus on the identified issue. Often uncomfortable compensatory muscular tensions and injuries can occur subsequent to the primary issue. If the whole body is not appropriately assessed and treated, primary issues could be missed or compensatory pains may not be alleviated, both of which could result in a short-term fix and an inadequate outcome.

Check out our post on “What is Veterinary Physiotherapy?” to find out more about who would benefit from Physiotherapy and how to find a Physiotherapist you can trust.

Before the physiotherapy treatment is carried out the physiotherapist will likely contact your veterinarian to gain consent and your pets’ relevant history. A multidisciplinary approach is always preferred in providing your pet with the best care. Gaining your pets’ medical history before the treatment can be useful for physiotherapists to prepare for the treatment, for example by researching a breed or condition that they may not have come across before.

Now… What should you expect from the Physiotherapy treatment?

Assessment

The assessment is arguably the most important part of the treatment. It provides the physiotherapist valuable information, allowing them to formulate an individualised treatment tailored to your pet’s goals.

Every Veterinary Physiotherapists approach is slightly different and often differs patient to patient to accommodate individual needs. However, every assessment should include most of these procedures.

1. Owner questioning 

The physiotherapist will want to gain as much relevant knowledge on your pet as possible to aid in their clinical reasoning. This could include questions on changes in; movement, behaviour, home environment, diet, and exercise. 

2. Static assessment 

With the animal standing square your Veterinary Physiotherapist will observe them from all angles. They will be looking for abnormalities such as weight distribution, symmetry, joint angles, muscle size and tone.

3. Dynamic assessment

Your therapist will likely ask you to walk the animal in a straight line away from and back towards them. They may then ask you to repeat this but in a faster gait, such as a trot, and possibly ask you to perform other exercises such as tight circles, backing up and transitions. They will again be looking for abnormalities such as weight distribution, flight arc, symmetry, active joint range of motion and footfall.

4. Palpation

Now it's time for your physiotherapist to use their highly developed sense of touch to evaluate your animal's soft tissue condition, passive joint range of motion, and to look for other signs of injury such as lesions, swelling and sensitivity.

Treatment

The treatment provided to your animal will be individualised and therefore vary greatly patient to patient. The techniques selected will be dependent on the findings of the assessment and the outcome goals. However, will generally include these components

1. Massage 

Different techniques of massage will likely be used throughout the treatment to warm up the soft tissues and relieve muscular tensions and pain.

2. Advanced manual techniques

These often include joint manipulations and can vary largely dependent on the practitioner.

3. Electrotherapies

The use of electrotherapies is not essential, and may not be appropriate for your animal, however they do provide an efficient and effective method of treatment when used appropriately. Common modalities you may see in use include laser, pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF), therapeutic ultrasound and electrical stimulations (such as transcutaneous TENS and neuromuscular NMES electrical nerve stimulation).

4. Stretching

Stretching is often used at the end of a treatment session when the tissues are fully warmed up. It can aid muscular flexibility and health, and increase joint range of motion.

Home Exercises

An exercise rehabilitation plan may be formulated, if necessary, to accelerate recovery or performance enhancement. This will likely include advice on small home changes you can implement to make your pets environment more suitable, or/and exercises to aid achievement of your pets’ goals. Always make sure your Veterinary Physiotherapist demonstrates the exercises to you and you are able to confidently demonstrate them back to ensure they are carried out effectively and safely. Your Veterinary physiotherapist will likely advance the exercises as your animal progresses through their rehabilitation.

To find out how to safely and effectively exercise your dog, or learn some core strengthening exercises for your horse, in our previous blog posts.

Congratulations for getting to the end of this post! 🎉 We hope you’ve learnt a little more about what’s involved in a physiotherapy treatment and the importance of each of these elements.

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