Joycare Media: All about PT for Animals

03/04/2025

Public 'service' announcement: I don't "do Canine Rehab". I also don't "do Vet Rehab". Please don't refer to either as my field of practice. Or as something I 'do'. I am a licensed Physical Therapist and I "practice Physical Therapy for Animals"! Is there a difference? Yes. Am I sensive about others trying to label me a 'vet rehabber? You bet I am.

03/04/2025

The hardest part of my job, but a reality. Sweet Nigel, age 16 and 3 months, entered eternal rest yesterday. This tiny Yorkie brought joy to many. When he stopped walking in the summer of 2023 he was found to have a full cranial cruciate ligament tear, as well as had been suffering from kidney issues and insufficiency. His lovely owners Jim and Kristin did all they could trying Wheels and ordering various types of bracing but he still wouldn't walk. They finally reached out for physical therapy help and the rest is history. Nigel was casted for a custom brace upon my recommendation. His first visit to the company was not successful as they felt he was too tiny to be able to fabricate a proper fitting brace. Being the stubborn persistent person that I can sometimes be, I reached out to the home office and spoke to one of the owners who offered to take another look if Nigel's parents were willing to drive quite a distance from their home. Which they did. Which resulted in Nigel getting a new custom brace and winning my Award for Best in Brace. He went on to walk with this brace for a year and a half, visiting the horses he loved to be friends with and going to the beach. I will miss him greatly. I hope you will help me extend condolences to his lovely owners.

03/03/2025

https://joycareonsite.com/blog/f/do-physical-therapists-diagnose. Check out my newest blog post!

02/26/2025

2017 to 2025. Eight years of teaching PT for Animals in various formats: live in-person, live online, recorded, and for University, CEU companies, APTA conference audiences at state, regional, and national levels. Plus a couple of international presentations online, from the US. This has been a great experience, and I still have a little more slated, but will likely wind this down. On to new directions...

02/25/2025

A moderate partial cranial Cruciate ligament tear in a 7.5 year-old Bernese Mountain Dog, using conservative treatment. This is one of my patients, Dottie, whose owners were advised to have surgery ($7-9K in a dog this size) for optimal management. Okay, let's break this down. On the surface that seems like the right thing to do, doesn't it? However, when you look at the age of this dog and the typical life expectancy for this breed and her lifestyle as being fairly sedentary, conservative options seem more of a possibility. So far, so good. Dottie''s owners have been applying the custom brace from my pet's brace 6 to 10 hours a day for about 2 weeks now and I'm beginning to feel a difference when I do ligament testing. The joint is starting to feel more stable and Dottie is walking with more weight-bearing on that side and with improved gait pattern. She's no longer circling before she sits down. I think her owners made a wise decision. Will keep at it!

02/24/2025

My lovely 4-year-old patient Lucy, a brindled mixed-breed beauty, enjoying some soft tissue treatment to her elbows. Lucy is nearing completion of her post-op TPLO rehabilitation. She has been offloading to her front limbs as compensation, so I address those weight-bearing joints in her intervention plan.

02/22/2025

Dr. Sue's blog, The Pet PT Pit Stop, is on a 2-month hiatus, January and February. This is due to her preparation and delivery of the Animal PT SIG lecture for CSM in Houston. Stay tuned as it will return in March with another interesting read! Better yet, sign up for email delivery on her website www.joycareonsite.com.

02/20/2025

This was a great question from a PT audience member at my CSM APTA lecture last Saturday in Houston: "Do Segond fractures occur with CCL tears in dogs (like they sometimes do in humans ACL tears)? And the answer I gave was no, I have not seen one. I just double checked through the literature as well as contacted a veterinarian friend of mine and wanted to follow up on this question. This image is of a human knee and just to review: a Segond fracture is an avulsion of the lateral tibial condyle generally at the attachment of the ITB. It occurs much more often with human ACL injuries because they are largely full and traumatic. In the veterinary field they are rarely seen as typically CCL injuries are slow and gradual and more degenerative than traumatic. Occasionally they occur and puppies and kittens where there's been a trauma. I am wondering if they might occur with caudal cruciate ligament hyperextension injuries? If anyone knows please leave comment.

02/19/2025

Avian Flu comes from wild birds and is transmitted to other birds and to other animal species, including human beings via fomite/touching contaminated surfaces (then touching your face/mouth) and/or improper handling of infected feces/saliva/body fluids, and by airborne water droplets. It isn't easily transmitted to humans but it can happen. This is why I discourage people from feeding wild birds, especially close to your home near your doorway or where you let dogs and cats outside. Zoonotic diseases are poorly understood by the general public and often disregarded, and that contributes to potential spread to the human population. Thank you for reading! Dr. Sue.

02/15/2025

02/15/2025

My lecture on PT Examination and Differential Diagnosis of the Canine Stifle and Shoulder is delivered! Two hours of lecture, slides, photos, videos, handouts, polling questions, case studies, live Q&A, with advanced level evidence-based content. APTA provided excellent level technology and tech support! They assigned a large room, which filled up quickly, with a great group of audience members. Its often more exciting to learn new treatment techniques, but these fine folks stayed with me while I drilled down to modified ways in which to test ligament tension v laxity, fine points of distinguishing between bicep tendonitis and rotator cuff contracture, etc. Dry but essential..Excellent audience engagement, great questions, mutual appreciation and.....desire to do our best for the animals and their owners

02/14/2025

At visiting the exhibit hall, having TexMex food, then to the Speaker Ready room to talk to the tech staff and get familiar with the system for my lecture tomorrow!

02/13/2025

Dr. Sue and Jeffrey having one of their many chats, from about 2 years ago. Oh Jeffrey....

02/12/2025

Nigel and Ollie in their Valentine's jackets sending me good luck wishes for my upcoming lecture in Houston.

02/11/2025

I've mentioned this a few times to clients in the past couple of weeks : a new (about 2 years on the market now) treatment for elbow arthritis. Its getting good results. A once yearly injection into the joint: it requires a veterinarian that has had training to do this sort of injection and who has a facility that is licensed to handle Radioactive elements. This is not like the monthly Librela shot that treats arthritis with non-selective nerve growth factor inhibition throughout the body. Instead, Synovectib/Synovetin is meant specifically for the elbow joint and is an injection of isotope tin, that goes locally... just into the joint and does not become systemic through the body. Its pricey...but much less than surgery! Dr. Sue

Get easy, enduring relief with Synovetin OA®. Just one simple treatment can provide up to a FULL YEAR of relief of your dog’s elbow arthritis pain.

02/07/2025

In final prep for a lecture I'm giving next week in Houston, I'm reading recent reviews of two of my online courses at PhysicalTherapy.com . So grateful I had the opportunity to present for that company as over 3,000 PTs have taken the courses: Intro to PT for Animals and Foundations of PT for Small Animals (the latter being more of an intermediate level). The reviews help me focus on what audience members find most helpful. I am gratified to see multiple mentions of the use of comparative Anatomy between human and quadruped animal. Back in my undergraduate days as a biology major, my subspecialty area was Comparative Anatomy. I loved it so much I almost stopped there and thought about going into graduate study for it instead of PT... when I realized it might not be a sustainable career for other than teaching. I couldn't see myself as a college professor. I think I made the right choice in moving on to PT, but I have found a real love of teaching and a unique way of bringing back Comparative Anatomy into the current thing I'm doing. When I'm speaking to physical therapists that work with human beings: doing the comparative thing really drives home the mechanical principles I'm trying to teach them relating to an animal that walks with four points on the ground.

02/06/2025

This little cutie, my patient Raea a Shih Tzu/Dachshund mix, stays mobile in her sturdy wheeled cart by Doggone Wheels.