Integrated Veterinary Services

14/04/2025

Well done everyone and here’s to the CIA!

14/04/2025

10/04/2025

🐾🩺 Thank you so much for joining us for our medicine month 💙 We hope you’ve enjoyed hearing our patient stories. 🐶🐱

As the largest medicine referral service in the South West we are fortunate to have extensive expertise and state of the art equipment 🏥🔬 be able to provide diagnostic investigation and care to patients with all spectrums of medical presentations, whether emergency 🚨 or chronic ❤️.

We are really proud of the individualised care that we provide every patient we see – and spend time discussing options with owners to ensure we provide a service that is bespoke and contextualised to each patient.🐾✨

If you would like to know more about our medicine service, or have any suggestions for what you would like to see from us on our social media pages in the future – then please do reach out!

Find out more about our service: https://www.langfordvets.co.uk/.../cli.../internal-medicine/

10/04/2025

We are continuing our research into hypermobility in dogs, and still need your help.

This interesting presentation is well recognised in people, but we are still lacking good research in dogs, despite increasing feeling that we are seeing it more and more - particularly in sporting dogs!

Assessment is completely non-invasive and all interested parties will have the chance to discuss it with the us before agreeing to take part. We will be attending the Blackdown Agility event on Saturday 10th May, so come and find us out our trade stand. We welcome any questions either beforehand or on the day.

08/04/2025

07/04/2025

Enhance your clients' understanding of pain management in pets. The Zero Pain Philosophy emphasizes the importance of educating caregivers to recognise and address pain effectively. By providing resources like videos and infographics, you can guide pet owners toward better pain awareness, ultimately improving animal welfare. Learn more about these strategies here

07/04/2025

Very interesting…

Currently presenting on the links between the gut and emotional / physical reactivity in dogs as part of the Victoria Stillwell Academy Dog Behaviour Conference - very grateful for the opportunity :))

You can still register today and get access to all the webinars in the conference. Link in the comments.

01/04/2025

A new study found that the number of myofascial trigger points (hyper sensitive points in a taut band of muscle) increased with age.
This evidence is consistent with our recommendation that all dogs, but especially dogs over the age of 5 have regular musculoskeletal check ups.
Book yours now
📞 01823 426490
📧 [email protected]

21/03/2025

📣 WE ARE HIRING 📣
Are you interested in joining our team? We are looking for a new administrator to support us with the day to day running of the clinic.

See the link below for further information

https://www.winclinic.co.uk/post/join-our-team-seeking-passionate-team-oriented-admin-support-for-clinic-based-physiotherapy-team

18/03/2025

12/03/2025

…and they have beautiful smiles 😊

11/03/2025

Brilliant 🤩

Why we play detective 🕵️

A client commented this week that compared to previous people they had seen with their dog that we asked a lot of in-depth questions, about life style, diet, behaviours , goals to name a few…

They are right we do ask a lot of questions… Why?
⭐️ Because there are so many factors that can influence injury, rehab and performance

⭐️ The smallest pieces of info, when put together can make or break the future management decisions

⭐️ We assess and treat all our clients holistically , therefore we have to understand both you and your dog to give you the very best care

09/03/2025

Quality-of-life scales. Are they all they're cracked up to be?

QofL scales are utilized in human medicine for end of life care.

The QofL scales used in human medicine tend to be disease specific.

The QofL scales in human medicine are validated.

In addition, QofL for people is broken down in to consideration of physical and emotional aspects.

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We have a few QofL scales to reach for in veterinary medicine.

BUT QofL scales in veterinary medicine are NOT validated.

As importantly they are mostly based on physical quality of life.

Consider that as vets we are trained to focus on physical quality of life for our patients. In contrast, as pet owners, chances are your focus may be more on the emotional quality of life of your pet.

So is there the risk of an incompatability in how we approach the decision making for end-of-life care from opposite sides of the consulting room table?

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As vets we use QofL scales to assist you, the caregiver, in deciding on the right time for euthanasia.

QofL scales can be used objectively to correctly identify a sadly deteriorating situation for your companion.

But emotions are understandably at play. So QofL scoring can also be subjective, with risk of the score being manipulated.

Perhaps as a caregiver you will skip over, and overlook, and cross things off in its completion. Because to do otherwise would lower the final score.

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The other thing to bear in mind is that QofL scales do not take in to account the whole scope of end-of-life care.

They do not take the client's quality of life nor the animal's will to live in to account, all of which should be part of the palliative care or euthanasia decision making.

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Veterinary end of life care is in its infancy, so much so that we don't have the research behind it as yet, the backing of evidence based medicine we love so much in all other fields of veterinary medicine. Because of this, by necessity, a lot of our practices are extrapolated from human end of life care.

We need an improved validated scale for veterinary palliative medicine to provide assessment not only for the quality of life but also your pet's:

⦁ will to live and ability to live (autonomy is a natural condition for animals in the wild).

⦁ emotional quality of life and ongoing desire for human interaction.

Also for:

⦁ the caregiver's quality of life and the caregiver's ability to provide the nursing care involved.

⦁ the quality of the dying process.

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In further posts I will discuss QofL scales in more detail but, having stated their significant limitations, I will also look at where the current leaders in veterinary palliative medicine are preferring to turn to assess patients at end of life.

Pic of Bob who joined our family from the Cinnamon Trust in his old age along with his sister Zak ❤️

08/03/2025

Please take a moment to complete this survey..

🐕 Are you a current/previous UK dog owner? (Non-vet community including students only)

We are conducting research looking into owners' ability to recognise different signs of pain in their dogs. The survey is anonymous, but you can enter into a prize draw at the end for a £25 Amazon Voucher!

📅 Deadline: 13th of March 2025

➡️ Survey: https://rvc.uk.com/recognising-pain-in-dogs

08/03/2025

Love this little dog!! 🐶 😍

08/03/2025

Words to live by spoken by an amazing lady who challenged the narrative….
We are proud to be making a difference in the veterinary industry, driven by an amazing team of strong, passionate and dedicated women ❤️