Lameness Evaluator Machine

[Scribbler]

Has anyone used these? It’s a computerized device. The vet puts one sensor on the horse’s butt, one between their ears, and one on the right fetlock. Then you trot out on a longe and in hand. The machine measures imbalance right to left and gives a readout. It measures things you can’t actually see or feel.

I had my vet do a lameness check on my 17 year old mare because I thought she was going short behind when I’ve longed her. After doing this barefoot, in front boots, and with a block, in arena and down driveway, the machine was insistent the actual problem was minor but persistent in the right front below the fetlock. Deducing she was sucking back behind because babying her front.

At first she was showing off right front and right hind but when we blocked the right front, the right hind was fine.

This is a horse that usually takes about 20 minutes to warm up but then goes forward and sound on all footing, currently preferring Scoot boots in front on trails. I’ve never seen a head bob at trot.

If you’ve used these machines before what has been your experience with their accuracy? I realize I’m getting into the realm of chasing a problem that might not exist. But I’m curious.

Vets advice was to take it easy for a month, then maybe revisit. Could be stone bruise, or arthritis, etc.

During the course of the evaluation her hock articulation became normal though she was still not tracking up. She’s always been short strided, but with good articulation, and I did get her tracking up on the longe at w/t with work over the years. She might just have warmed up enough to get her articulation back.

[mroades]

used it a couple of time with very helpful results

[Amy3996]

New Bolton used it on my gelding. It was very useful. It identified issues in RH and LF. Lameness resolved after blocking the hoof. Did a full series of farrier films. He had very thin soles all around and a flat palmar angle behind. We added leather pads up front and standard steel shoes behind (hinds were previously barefoot). Boom, much happier, more comfortable horse.

I was really thankful that the vet at NB offered that to me first, because our next step if the lameness locator had been inconclusive would have been a bone scan ($$$). The lameness locator exam was $100 and gave us tremendously useful information.

[Hej]

I’ve also found this tool useful in determining location and degree of lameness, especially in rehabbing an injury.

It’s important to keep in mind that it shows the degree of lameness and the affected quadrant but doesn’t diagnose cause.

[marmarmar]

The vet I used for my horse’s PPE earlier this year used a lameness detector as part of his evaluation. Horse passed with flying colors (i.e. nothing abnormal was detected). I had never seen one before, and thought it was really cool. The vet was happy to chat with me about the sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes) and how the tolerances were defined. I can’t remember the nitty gritty details, but I was impressed by it. Sorry I can’t give you any insight into accuracy, since my horse had no issues at the time

[Scribbler]

Thank you this is all very helpful!

[Clover5]

I’ve used it 3 times, and would use one again.

First time was for a PPE. The vet thought they saw something off in the RH when the horse was being trotted out, but they weren’t sure. We checked with the lameness locator, and found that the RH was in fact a smidge off. The vet did some imaging, and found that, while the horses was pretty sound now, they’d be a pasture ornament in 2 years.

Second time was for my pony. He’d felt slightly ‘off’ at the trot, but looked sound. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things (I mostly felt it on uneven ground hacking out in a hay field), but after a couple of weeks it progressed to definitely off. A few months of rehabbing his SI, and he looked good to go. I started riding again, but one day he took a couple of funny steps, so I got off and freaked out a little that he wasn’t sound yet and I’d made him worse. Had the vet out, they did the lameness locator, and declared that he was the soundest horse they’d ever tested; including the horses they trained on to see what a ‘sound’ horse should read like. Continued on his rehab and he returned to his normal work level. I definitely felt it was worth it as then I wasn’t worried that I was breaking him by rehabbing him.

Third time was for my mom’s horse - he’d been slightly off/‘rein lame’, and then acutely lame. First vet wanted to go straight to hock injections, even though she barely watched him when he was trotted out. We got a second opinion, that vet brought out the lameness locator. She isolated it to the hind end, and suspected either SI or suspensories. We did some imaging and blocks, and isolated it to the SI. We gentled rehabbed him over the summer and he was back to riding fit by the fall, no injections required.

[beowulf]

@Clover5

The vet did some imaging, and found that, while the horses was pretty sound now, they’d be a pasture ornament in 2 years.

What on earth was it?!

Germane to OP’s question, I’ve seen it used on PPEs for client horses. Very cool tool. My impression is that sometimes deciphering the results takes someone with practice because while it will pick up on deviation of stride lengths and lameness, it is not useful for diagnosis of affected area. IE certain lamenesses are compensation versus the actual area of injury.

[IPEsq]

I’ve used it a few times where the lameness has been very subtle and/or not seeming to respond to blocks. Most recently it confirmed we had a setback in SI rehab, which was important because vet initially suspected horse was brewing a suspensory. It ruled out suspensory issues and pretty clearly confirmed SI.

Some of my vets like it when they are thinking they are looking at the horse with some bias. Like we know horse has X and so they kind of want the issue to be X, but it’s subtle so it’s not clear. Or they maybe want to see more improvement from a block but maybe all we are really getting is that the horse is warmed up. For those ongoing tricky cases the device takes away the human factor in the clinical exam. It does have some limitations, but even for subtle irregularities it can help you identify trends.

[Clover5]

Honestly I don’t remember the actual diagnosis. I think it was in the hock maybe? The seller’s response was that the horse was cheap enough that they’d just find someone who wouldn’t bother vetting

[sportyspicepony]

Is this something that most vets have and incorporate as a part of their lameness exams or would you have to ask for it extra? My horse had a lameness eval a couple of weeks ago but I’m guessing since the vet didn’t bust out a machine for it, they probably don’t have one lying around

[equinelibrium]

I don’t have actual experience with them, but I did write a 50 page undergrad thesis on objective lameness evaluation in college, so I like to think I know a little bit about them!

As others have mentioned, the best use cases for these devices are identifying small changes in a horse’s movement. They are very useful in a clinical setting for all types of lamenesses, but the best use for them is comparing movement before/after blocks. They are especially useful here because vets tends to lose whatever objectivity they had in these cases. We all know that if you look hard enough you can convince yourself ANY horse is lame in a particular place! Oftentimes the lameness will dance from place to place as blocks come and go, which can be explained by compensatory lamenesses.

In case anyone is interested in how they work, I can explain a bit. If you don’t like math you should probably stop reading now Basically they work by using the Fourier series to estimate the equation of the line made by the poll/pelvis movement. One of the huge benefits of these devices is that they capture data in all 3 dimensions. A lot of photo/image analysis, or even sensors places on legs (made popular by Centaur Biomechanics), only measure 2 dimensional movement.

And yes, we do need a way to objectively measure lameness in horses. This paper (written by the creator of this device) found that for lameness less than grade 1.5 on the AAEP scale, vets only agreed around 62% of the time. From the abstract:

When the mean AAEP lameness score was >1.5 clinicians agreed whether or not a limb was lame 93.1% of the time (kappa= 0.86), but when the mean score was < or = 1.5 they agreed 61.9% (kappa= 0.23) of the time. When given the task of picking whether or not the horse was lame and picking the worst limb after full lameness evaluation, clinicians agreed 51.6% (kappa= 0.37) of the time.

Repeatability of subjective evaluation of lameness in horses - PubMed

(If anyone wants the full paper let me know. I have TONS of these papers laying around that I’d be happy to share!)

@sportyspicepony, it’s recommended that vets use these on most of their lameness cases so they’re familiar with how to use it and interpret results. It’s up to the individual vets how they use it in their practice, though. I’ve only heard of them being used by clinics/vet schools, but that’s hopefully changing!

[Scribbler]

So my young trainer friend with a great biomechanics eye spotted the right front hoof right away. I told her we’d found something on the exam but not what. She though the sole felt a little spongy so maybe an abscess brewing. So rest boots for grass walks and get my trimmer in to balance things.

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[kaya842]

I had a similar experience to Amy - horse was clearly off in the hind to the point where I thought FOR SURE she tore something and rushed her to the hospital early in the AM. They brought her in and did an initial once over exam saying they think she may have fractured her hock due to the lameness but wanted to put the locator on her to be sure. They put all the sensors on and trotted her up and down their concrete alleyway (which is awesome for lameness exams as it’s directly off of a sand lunging ring so you have both hard and soft surfaces). Low and behold she was mostly lame in her diagonal foreleg but also lame behind. Keeping the locator on, we did some blocks (both issues were in the hoof so we didn’t have to block very far). Got some farrier views and were sent home with a new shoeing plan. For reference, our issue was extremely thin soles in front and an abscess in the hind. I’ve tried to see if I can buy a locator for personal use. Alas they don’t sell them to the general public that I can find.

[IPEsq]

I’ve had it used by a vet school but also by a small performance practice.

It was really fascinating with this last time I used it because it consistently showed RH but sometimes there was a forelimb. Looking at the lameness, you’d think stifle or suspensory. Stifle known to be clean. But nothing much was changing the degree of RH lameness going through flexions and hoof tester pressure and blocks. Blocking also didn’t cause the lameness to shift. But we did SI compression in place of a flexion, and horse jogged off totally sound following that. It was all pretty subtle so even the lameness readings weren’t far outside of WNL and not that obvious to the eye. But horse had been having a performance setback after responding well to SI treatment, and he was crooked in a totally new way and killing my back and twisting my saddle around. In fact, before first SI treatment, he wasn’t as “lame” on the LL because his whole hind end was kind of equally funky between “lame” and “compensating”. After we made it through the first part of treatment and rehab when he tweaked himself, it then was consistent on the one hind limb.

In the past, we’d blocked this horse and my vet had sworn he responded (after 20+ minutes), but I honestly thought no change. But he had a known thing in one joint and I think they really wanted it to be that. Again we were starting from a pretty subtle place. But even vets with good eyes can be biased. Vet that did the last LL diagnostics described above said he was biased towards suspensory based on horse’s way of going and conformation but said the LL definitively ruled it out, which was a relief.

[TwiSedai]

Hmmm I wonder if you could buy your own sensors, write up a script and rig up your own…that might be an interesting engineering project…are there any resources for more info on the details behind them?

[IPEsq]

I think the LL is under patent so there are some risks with doing this.

[Scribbler]

Update. My excellent trimmer came out today. I trotted out the mare and the trimmer said she wasn’t limping exactly but the flight path of her right foot was eccentric like she was trying out different ways of landing. Trimmer found her heels had grown out/worn down to be uneven and there was a crack that might have been a past abscess. She trimmed her and balanced out the heels and she trotted out fine after. Went for a ride, just walk as the day was hot. Felt fine.

So interesting to know that the Lameness Locator can pick up an imbalance in trim that can be fixed. Of course we aren’t likely to run the machine again to check.

[equinelibrium]

Wow, that’s amazing! I knew it was a great resource but that’s incredible that it was able to detect that. It would be really interesting to see what the results would be after the trim, but I totally get not doing it. Still, it would be cool. For science.

@TwiSedai, @IPEsq is correct and the device is under patent. That being said, I’m sure it could be done, but I’m not sure how useful it would be for owner use on their personal horses. IMO, one of the most important aspects of these sensors is the large sample size of data used to determine what “normal” is. It’s deducing abnormalities in your horse’s movement from the movement of thousands of other horses. To use it on your own horse, you would need a baseline measurement of your horse’s movement, and you would have to know that your horse was 100% sound when that baseline was measured. Even then, it’s not measuring the same thing. It would only detect changes in your horse’s movement but it wouldn’t be comparing your horse’s movement to the “standard” movement.

[soloudinhere]

I actually have used the device to compare a horse’s lameness on several visits with the vet. It’s very interesting to see how in particular shoeing can change the position and timing of a lameness, eg a horse that had a 20mm impact lameness then had a 14mm pushoff lameness and within normal limits after a block, but more pronounced on the right hind. It was interesting.

I do think it can be a little like x rays in that it picks up a lot of things and it’s still up to the vet/owner/etc to come up with tracing back the origin, but it can give a picture over time which is interesting.