Melanie Haines Physio 4 Animals is a service provided by Melanie Haines Veterinary Physiotherapist working in the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire area.
As a Chartered Physiotherapist she is regulated by the Chartered society of Physiotherapist (CSP), The health Professional Council (HPC) and the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Animal Physiotherapy (ACPAT). "I work with both large and small animals running clinics in several vets practices as well as do home visits to animals at their owners homes or where horses are stabled. My small
animal work is based mainly at Paws4 hydrotherapy, Toton and Dovecote veterinary hospital, Castle donington. I have access to the use of both an Underwater treadmill and a pool to carry out Hydrotherapy if this is judged to be suitable for your animal. I work along side the animal's veterinary care to help rehabilitate animals with a variety of Neurological, Orthopaedic and Degenerative conditions, as well as treating horses and dogs with competition or performance problems." Each animal is assessed as an individual and all treatment plans are tailored to their needs dependent on their problem and personality. You can find more information about whether physiotherapy may help your animal on this website, or feel free to phone Melanie for an informal chat about your animal.
Would you like to become a Veterinary Physiotherapist? 🐶🐴
Join the University of Nottingham for our Open Day - 11/02/24
Course: MSc Veterinary Physiotherapy
Location: Nottingham Vet School
Time: 9.30-1pm
See the amazing facilities on offer including stables, new clinical space and have a lecture in our purpose built room🐴🐶
Practice your skills with our hands-on tasks and ask current students about their experiences on the course so far.
🐕 A new study by the VetCompass team at the RVC has found that dogs with heatstroke may be suffering even further due to outdated first aid practices. The research calls for updated guidance to be promoted more widely for dogs with heatstroke – including cold water immersion and using fans or air conditioning on soaked dogs – to support owners to provide the best possible care.
➡️ Read more: https://rvc.uk.com/hot-dogs-cool-first-transport-second
Overview of the three phases in tendon and ligament healing 💡
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780081004890/biomechanics-of-tendons-and-ligaments
👉 After acute injuries and after surgeries, tendon healing occurs in 3 main phases (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16245649/).
1⃣ There is an initial cellular phase, where the otherwise cell-poor tendon tissue is populated by immigrating erythrocytes and inflammatory cells such as neutrophils, monocytes, and macrophages. An inflammatory cascade is induced where inflammatory cytokines such as Interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor- α (TNF- α ) are released (https://ssms.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Zeitschrift/60-2012-2/Biolmol_Huegle.pdf).
Moreover, vasoactive factors lead to an increased vascular permeability and initiate angiogenesis. Tenocytes proliferate and migrate to the wound site where they predominantly produce collagen type III (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16245649/).
2⃣ For the following 6 weeks, during the remodelling stage, collagen type III synthesis is predominant and the water and glycosaminoglycans’content of the healing tissue are higher than in healthy tissue (Fig.). Besides monocytes and macrophages occurring immediately after injury, other inflammatory cell types such as lymphocytes come later, during the remodelling stage, and are part of the adaptive immune system, providing the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 and TNF-receptor 2 which neutralizes TNF- α and as such initiate the end of the inflammatory reaction (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21210861/).
3⃣ In the third-phase (modelling stage), cellular density decreases with a change from a cellular tissue to a fibrous tissue; fibers get more aligned during this phase, whereas they were not well oriented before.
Moreover, from around 10 weeks postlaceration, a scar-like tissue is most often the predominant tissue found. Until a tendon or ligament tissue has fully recovered, 1 year may be needed (maturation stage). In this last phase of regeneration, tenocyte metabolism and vascularity decline—nevertheless ending up in a fibrovascular scar tissue that never reaches the characteristics of normal healthy tendon or ligament tissue.
Illustration: https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780081004890/biomechanics-of-tendons-and-ligaments
📣 WEBINAR ALERT! 📣
RECOGNISING HORSES PAIN
Join ACPAT Chartered Physiotherapist Sue Palmer to learn about recognising signs of pain in your horse.
Suitable for horse owners, riders, trainers, coaches: anyone who wants to train their horse with a focus on soundness and wellbeing.
Head to acpat.org/events to book on!
✨️ pleased to announce ✨️
We are often asked what is the difference between a regulatory body and a professional association?
RAMP was initiated to provide a regulatory body in the absence of statutory regulation in animal musculoskeletal care, the founders were advised if they were to move forward and update the legislation we would have to start by self regulating the whole industry.
RAMP therefore is a regulatory body albeit voluntary i.e. you don't have to join to practice (similar but not the same as the statutory human regulators, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), the General Chiropractic Council (GCC) or the General Osteopathic Council(GOsC)). RAMPs purpose is to protect the public and their animals by producing cross industry standards, ensuring registrants reach and maintain these standards and maintain a competent register of eligible Practitioners to reassure the public best standards are being monitored.
A Professional Association, sets its own standards and has its own specific criteria for membership. It supports the Practitioners and supports CPD. It sets standards for treating animals for their own flavour of Practitioners.
Because animal Professional Associations ( such as ACPAT,IRVAP,NAVP, IAAT, BVCA, MCC, MAA, AAO etc) all represent their specific memberships they are not considered by the authorities as representive of the whole industry, they are not wholly independent or impartial and therefore are not wholly in existence to protect the public, they exist to develop and promote the practice of their members.
Therefore it is essential we have both types of organisation that are completely separate. If Practitioners are not seen to be accountable to a Regulatory Body there is no impartial disciplinary process and therefore there is a danger that people who do not maintain best practice will be allowed to continue to practice.
RAMP is and must stay completely independent of all the Professional Associations if Registrants are to be respected within the wider veterinary healthcare industry. Practitioners who are Registrants of RAMP show the whole industry they can maintain the professional standards set by a Regulatory Body.
🐩 A new study has revealed a huge demand for designer crossbreed dogs in the UK between 2019 and 2020, believing they are more hypoallergenic, generally healthy, easy to train and good with children, which could be misconceptions based on current evidence. The new study also suggests that this increased demand poses a significant risk to the health and welfare of these designer dogs due to high demand leading to poor breeding and to buyers unintentionally supporting puppy farming and illegal importation of underage puppies.
➡️ Read More: https://rvc.uk.com/designer-dogs-welfare
How do I know if my dog is in pain?
The honest answer is it's not very easy. By the time your dog starts limping it's likely they will have had some discomfort for a long time. Dogs communicate with us through their behaviour and there are some behavioural signs which are associated with pain in dogs but are easy to miss. What I often see in practice is a slow, adaptive change in behaviour, such as reluctance to jump on/off the sofa or in/ out of the car. Another classic is slowing down or even sitting down on walk. Less well recognised signs of pain include loss of interest in food or toys , reactive or aggressive behaviour to loud noises, dogs, strangers or other new experiences. Alternatively dogs may become withdrawn, quiet and stick to one area of the house.Dogs who start to show any of these behaviours should been taken to your vet for a check up.
Let me reassure you, contrary to the claims of a well known dog trainer on Channel 5 your dog is not being a "madam" or a "diva. nor are you "indulging" them by placing rugs on slippery surfaces. Your dog is communicating their pain and distress in the ONLY way available to them - through their behaviour.
I can't comment on the latest episode of Dogs Behaving badly as I would rather have a poke in the eye with a sharp stick than watch outdated and unethical methods used in the name of dog training.
What I can do is direct you to resources to help you help your dog.
1.I can't say this enough, your vet is the first port of call if you suspect there is anything wrong with your dog. Take along videos of your dog on a walk or doing the behaviour giving cause for concern. If the behaviour is on and off, keep a diary of symptoms for a couple of weeks before going and take it along.
2. Physiotherapy and Hydrotherapy can be hugely helpful in managing pain in your dog and building muscle, improving balance and and preventing return of pain. Your vet needs to give permission for this which is just a simple form. Qualified people can be found at www.ACPAT.org and
www.RAMPregister.org for Physiotherapy and NARCH and CHA are the professional associations for hydrotherapy.
3. Read up from reliable sources about pain and behaviour in dogs. CAM, Canine Arthritis Management is a website and page , run by Vet Hannah Capon and has a wealth of information, videos, live discussions with experts from the veterinary, nurse, physio, hydro and behaviourist worlds. best of all it's completely free!
4. Make simple adaptations to your home environment, such as rugs on slippery surfaces (be careful if anyone in the household has mobility problems as they may trip), stair gates, ramps to get in/ out of the car and footstools to get on/ off the sofa. these are just a few simple things you can so to help.
Really the only wrong thing to do is ignore the behaviour and expect your dog to just get on with it. Unfortunately that is just what happened on last weeks episode of Dogs Behaving Badly, teaching millions of people to ignore their dogs communication and force them into compliance. But now you know better.
By the way , Bella is protesting that I washed her blanket and will not lie on it because it's far too clean. See, communication all the time!
In order to strengthen and improve, bodies need time and appropriate exercise, not a miracle.
Yes we can cause short term changes and improvements within a session, I like to call this a "window of opportunity" to use pain free/pain improved movement in order to perform exercise efficiently to ultimately improve.
To make the long term changes its YOU, it's how you build your horses foundations and ground work, slowly building upon them, that will make those long term changes you are looking for.
Beware of people offering quick fixes or miracle cures, with no offer of follow up assessment.
Check your chosen therapist has appropriate qualifications, ideally they should be registered with a governing body such as RAMP (register of animal musculoskeletal practitioners).
Stick with therapists you know and have come recommended to you 👍
One of my students is completing some research on treatment of non surgical neurological cases if you have owned a dog with this condition could you take 5 min to complete the survey.
Thank you
https://nottingham.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/physiotherapy-in-non-surgical-canine-neurological-disease
"I am currently completing my final year MSc Veterinary Physiotherapy thesis and am conducting research into owner and vet experiences and opinions of using veterinary physiotherapy for non-surgical canine neurological disease. I hope you might be able to help by completing a quick 10 minute survey and by sharing the link with anyone else who may also be willing to complete it. Thank you very much for your time."
Online survey BOS
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