This is a wonderful tool in trying to find out where the lameness is.I took my mare to Dr Kleider almost 2 years ago to see why she was a little off.Thought it was her hocks.Nope,her right front,then did x rays and ultrasound to pinpoint the problem. I feel it saved me money and guess work in the long run.I just call it the “sensor thing”.
[QUOTE=morganpony86;5428667]
And let me tell you, I’ve heard that complaint ALL. THE. TIME. from the DVM & MD students I have taught. “Why do we have to learn the basics about bloodwork??? A Hemavet does all the work for me!!! No muss, no fuss!!” What do I tell them?[/QUOTE]
One of my engineering professors had a splendid rant about why people needed to be able to do basic figures in their head even though we had lovely calculators and computers to use. I wish I could replicate it, as it does all boil down to the same thing - if you don’t understand what the gadget is doing and have some idea of what you expect it to be telling you, then you have no hope in heck of noticing when the thing has broken, or there’s been user error.
(Yes, sometimes the surprising results WILL be the correct ones - but you need to make darn sure you know how to work through the issue and check and double check - preferably with other methods - so you don’t end up treating/solving a problem that is just a problem with the gadget/use of gadget.)
Folks who’ve done pilot training seem to often have a good attitude towards such things. Maybe borrow some teaching approaches from aviation folks re: use of gadgetry vs other information. (Though in planes it does help that you typically have quite a few different information sources right in front of you, which makes it quite easy to check and cross check, and most people who’ve flown for any amount of time will have at least one story where they had to do just that.)
. . . or didn’t live to tell a story if they failed. :lol:
My lameness guy is very good. In a way I could see this machine as an augment to his procedures… but I don’t think he will get one very soon.
What I do see happening is a “below” average vet will get it, use it on everything,maybe understand the technology and start diagnosing every horse they randomly look at.and since they are not over achievers in the first place, they will have no idea when something is not right with the machine.
I also agree that shoeing(bars and such) and hi/lo heels will make a difference how the horse travels and skew the readings unless the doc has a method to adjust for that.
Oh and do you have to be a licensed vet to buy/use one? Are trainers going to start doing some of their own evaluations? Wonder what it costs
[QUOTE=myrna;5438802]
This is a wonderful tool in trying to find out where the lameness is.I took my mare to Dr Kleider almost 2 years ago to see why she was a little off.Thought it was her hocks.Nope,her right front,then did x rays and ultrasound to pinpoint the problem. I feel it saved me money and guess work in the long run.I just call it the “sensor thing”.[/QUOTE]
Dr. Kleider was a very good lameness diagnostician before he acquired the system. He was the only beta tester in Canada. He stuck with it also and I would consider him an “expert” in the use of the system now.
[QUOTE=Tom Bloomer;5439006]
. . . or didn’t live to tell a story if they failed. :lol:[/QUOTE]
Which does rather help to make the people who DO have stories even more convincing. :yes:
I think pilots who have done IFR training tend to be the ones with more stories about such things, because as part of getting the IFR status a good instructor will simulate exactly those sorts of issues.
(IFR being when you’re flying by instruments because visibility is poor - so if something in the cockpit is suddenly telling you something has gone funny, you can’t necessarily just look out the window and see which way you’re pointing - you have to use the information from the other instruments available to you to see if they agree with what you’re being told, and you need to do it FAST.)
It’s not at all a bad skill to have, really. It boils down to being a form of analysis and decision making, and few enough people these days have any skill at THAT at all. :rolleyes:
use of equipment with gaited horses
[QUOTE=pkayg1970;5438788]
How does this system work on gaited horses? I have a Missouri Foxtrotter whose “head shake” is a natural part of their gait. Is this system designed to take into account a foxtrot gait which is a 4 beat broken diagonal gait, or will that, in addition to the “headshake”, create a really screwy reading? Just wondering - my vet, at Conejo Valley in California, uses this system and I was curious if it would work on the gaited breeds…[/QUOTE]
This is an excellent question. In short I can tell you that it works well with Missouri Fox Trotters for forelimb lameness and good for hind limb lameness with some adjustment in the analysis parameters (the veterinarian using the system can adjust these parameters). We have lots of Missouri Fox Trotters here in Missouri. The ideal Fox Trotter gait is more like a trot than the pace or rack because the forelimb hits the ground slightly before the contralateral (opposite) hind limb and the interval between these 2 foot falls is longer in duration than than the interval between the next diagonal foot falls (opposite forelimb right before same side hind limb). This results in exaggerated vertical head movement and depressed vertical pelvic movement. The exaggerated vertical head movement is no problem for the inertial sensors and picking up asymmetry is very easy, perhaps their is more variability but this can be handled by collecting more strides. The real problem with Fox Trotters is the depressed vertical pelvic movement (which is why they are so comfortable to ride). Sometimes this movement is very small and the sensors may have difficulty picking up right to left asymmetry. One of the objectives in our current National Science Foundation supported study is to adjust the current motion analysis algorithms so that symmetic gaits other than the trot (specifically the Missouri Fox Trot, the Saddlebred rack, and the Standardbred pace) can be adequately evaluated. We are currently conducting research with Dr. Roger Shaw in Birch Tree Missouri collecting trials on Missouri Fox Trotters. We have seen many Missouri Fox Trotters at the University of Missouri clinic and the system works very well for forelimb lameness and pretty good for hind limb lameness as long as the user is careful in his analysis.
One other thing I can tell you is that it is not very useful to evaluated Fox Trotters moving in hand on a lead shank. Fox Trotters do all sorts of odd things on a lead shank that make them very difficult to evaluate in this way. For best results (subjective and objective) they should be ridden. Along the same vein, we currently also have much data on the Brazilian Mangalarga Marchador, which displays a common gait very similar to the Fox Trot. An associate of mine, Dr. Marco Lopes, has collected data on 91 of these horses while ridden, and we are now analyzing the data. In all 91 of these horses the sensors and software did not make any mistakes, i.e. the motion data was analyzed without crashing and without calculation error. We are now comparing the results of this analysis with expert subjective evaluation of simultaneously collected video.
experienced vs inexperienced, trainer use, etc
[QUOTE=jumpytoo;5439040]
What I do see happening is a “below” average vet will get it, use it on everything,maybe understand the technology and start diagnosing every horse they randomly look at.and since they are not over achievers in the first place, they will have no idea when something is not right with the machine.s[/QUOTE]
This argument can be levied against any new technology. I must reiterate that the equipment does not “diagnose”. It measures. I also would be willing to bet that if the vet was an “under achiever” he/she would not spend the time and effort needed to learn this new technology.
Check a previous post that I made. Unless the shoeing technique causes or reduces lameness it will not affect the analysis. Also, we have induced the hi/low heel situation and tested its effect on the analysis. On the front limbs there is no effect. On the hind limbs there is an immediate effect that dissipates after a few days.
The equipment is only sold to veterinarians.
Not unless they acquired the equipment from their veterinarian. I would discourage anyone from using it without first getting the training. Some veterinarians have their technicians collect the data while they are doing their normal lameness evaluation. The technician runs the analysis and shows it to them. In the end, however, the vet will be the one to look at the results and proceed accordingly.
This varies a lot. It should depend on many things.
Thanks for the quick response - here’s an addendum to my question - my Foxtrotter tends to prefer a pace to a foxtrot - if she was pacing while the testing was taking place, could that give a false reading of lameness in a front limb?
[QUOTE=pkayg1970;5440253]
Thanks for the quick response - here’s an addendum to my question - my Foxtrotter tends to prefer a pace to a foxtrot - if she was pacing while the testing was taking place, could that give a false reading of lameness in a front limb?[/QUOTE]
No. It would actually give an opposite reading in the hind limb. If the equipment indicated right hind it would really be left hind. However, if the equipment indicated sound (i.e. no asymmetry) this would most likely be correct. One other quirk. Sometimes with Fox Trotters the equipment will indicate pelvic asymmetry switching back and forth between the hind limbs. This is most likely a mistake that can be corrected by adjusting parameters for selecting of strides. However, the forelimb evaluation in Fox Trotters is the same when trotting or pacing. It has been my experience that Fox Trotters that prefer to pace, if they have historically been very good Fox Trotters, have lameness, but I do not think you can say front limb or hind limb based on this information alone. Does the horse pace when you ride him or just when he is “trotted” up and down on a lead shank?
Reminds me of relying on GPS and never learning to read a map.
I don’t understand all of the negative comments.Any diagnostic tool can be used poorly in the wrong hands,should we get rid of them and not use modern technology?Having seen this in action,i feel that is worth while.
1 Like
Don’t worry, be happy. 
Thank you Dr. Keegan for spending the time to answer some of my specific complaints/issues with the Lameness Locator. Personally, I support technological advancement and when my vet suggested we use it I was very excited and agreed wholeheartedly. However, as I mentioned in my previous posts, the way the results were explained to me seemed confusing and I generally dislike it when vets dismiss my concerns/questions regardless of how stupid they may seem at the time. I’m very educated and have owned horses for 25+ years - I like to gather as much info as possible.
It has been 30 days since my horse was examined and he has been rested during that time. I started working him again and, unfortunately, the issues I saw prior to the exam I still see. I am almost certain the problem lies in his left hock and not the right front that the sensors indicated (and as I originally suspected.) Yes, my horse has a small tear in his suspensory (outside branch only over sesamoid) in the right front that the exam indicated, and I am thankful we were able to catch and treat it. However, I really don’t think it is causing him any pain or discomfort at all. It is cold and tight and he doesn’t seem to be compensating for it at all.
As I mentioned earlier, my horse is a upper level dressage horse (PSG) that does some low level jumping/eventing for fun. The unevenness I see and feel are primarily while he is on the lunge line or circles. It is particularly apparent during pirouettes where he swaps the hind legs or when cantering to the right and he likes to carry his hips to the inside. The lameness locator only measured his movement in a straight line. Would the sensors work on a curved line - say on the lunge?
I am wondering if the Lameness Locator is really helpful for lameness issues with dressage horses that are fairly sound and even in a straight line, but have worse or more severe lameness issues pop up when asked to perform on extreme bending lines, circles and collection. Obviously, the amount of flexion needed to go in a straight line is nothing compared to the flexion required for pirouettes.
Thoughts?
Oh, and one more question…
Does the ground affect the sensors? My vet uses a graveled, not very even parking lot to trot the horses for the exam. I think it’s a horrible spot for lameness checks, but there’s no other place to do it. There’s an incline one way, decline the other, pot holes, gravel/stones and a highway right next to it.
Thanks!
[QUOTE=GreekDressageQueen;5453012]
Thank you Dr. Keegan for spending the time to answer some of my specific complaints/issues with the Lameness Locator. Personally, I support technological advancement and when my vet suggested we use it I was very excited and agreed wholeheartedly. However, as I mentioned in my previous posts, the way the results were explained to me seemed confusing and I generally dislike it when vets dismiss my concerns/questions regardless of how stupid they may seem at the time. I’m very educated and have owned horses for 25+ years - I like to gather as much info as possible. [/QUOTE]
I understand your concerns. The results can be confusing and that is why the training is important. I personally make it a habit of always first satisfying the owner’s complaint and concerns, sometimes even when I am pretty convinced that the horse has something completely different than what the owners thinks. It just works out better for me when I do this first. For example, I blocked a horse on friday in a hind limb all day because the owner was convinced, and would not be swayed, that the horse did not have a hindlimb lameness, even though I told him that I was suspicious it had a forelimb lameness. We parted as friends, he knew I really tried hard to find out his horse’s problem, and if the horse does not get better in a short period of time, I believe he will be more amendable to really looking hard at the limb I thought the horse was lame in. In your particular case, of course, I cannot even begin to advise you, but I can say that if the equipment measured a right forelimb lameness and did not measure a hind limb lameness, I would be willing to bet that the predominant problem is in the right front limb.
Maybe, on the day of your examination, the right front was confusing things. Perhaps it is time to evaluate again. Maybe the horse will show up with a left hind this time. A right forelimb lameness sometimes goes along with a left hind limb lameness (same diagonal at a trot).
You bring up some very good points. The equipment can be used to evaluate the lunge, but the thresholds between lameness and soundness that are on the report do not hold. Instead, if the horse is a good lunger, you simply compare lunge to left with lunge to right and look for differences. Some horses, however, naturally lunge in one direction slightly differently than in the other direction and this has to be taken into account. Your comments on the canter are very interesting. Biomechanically, the canter is “kinder” on the limbs than the trot. This is because the center of gravity of the horse at the canter does not move as much as it does when the horse is trotting. This is another reason why lameness is easier to see and analyze at the trot, besides the obvious advantage of being able to look for asymmetry at the trot. We are actually now developing algorithms to evaluate the right and left lead canter as part of an NSF grant. However, the analysis will be something like the analysis at the lunge, i.e. you will have to compare left lead canter (like lunging to the left) to right lead canter (like lunging to the right). We are more than a year off for completion of this analysis. Even when this analysis is ready however, analyzing or evaluating a canter without comparing to the opposite lead will be prone to error. One other thing about the lunge. The lunge will frequently bring out forelimb lameness and dampen (mask) hind limb lameness. Trotting the horse straight away is, in many cases, the most sensitive way to pick up hind limb lameness. The horse has to push off harder to keep going forward. Flexion tests can also frequently bring out hind limb lameness.
It is possible that the horse does not show anything when trotting in straight line and only shows signs when doing acrobatic maneuvers, especially moves requiring the horse to pivot around the hind limbs. This may be where flexion tests might be helpful. However, if the horse is showing a lameness in one limb at the trot, it would reasonable to think this is the foci of lameness when bending. If horses show no lameness at the trot (the hardest gait as far as force on the limbs) but do not perform bending maneuvers well I be suspicious of back, pelvis, or high limb (hip, shoulder) dysfunction.
Random uneven ground increases variability which can make subtle lameness more difficult to pick up. Hard ground is more consistent than soft ground. However, a gradual incline or decline in the direction of travel can actually be used to advantage. I have seen some stifle problems only show up when trotting down hill. Generally the vet trots the horse off in one direction (let us say in the direction of the decline) and then back (retracing the steps or in the direction of the incline). Thus the calculated lameness variables are averaged out and the slope has little effect on the overall results. On the other hand, a slope that is perpendicular to the direction of travel, if it is consistent throughout the length of the lameness evaluation area, will throw off the hind limb evaluation results. The sensors will measure the slope. So, for example, if the slope declines from right to left, when the horse is trotting away the pelvis will fall less on the right side (this mimics and right hind limb impact lameness) and the pelvis will rise less on the left side (this mimics a left hind limb pushoff lameness). The opposite effect will be seen when the horses trots back and this can be taken into account.
She usually tends to pace except when going uphill or over cavalettis, or if she id being ridden on a firmer surface - my trainer and I have been working on this, but I believe it’s probably more to do with my riding than her (I am a rather new rider), and also perhaps on the footing in our arena, which has been made very deep for our hunter/jumper horses in our facility. I think due to the “shuffling” nature of her hind legs when in gait, they tend to get caught up in all the deep footing and perhaps this makes it easier for her to pace?
pacing foxtrotters
[QUOTE=pkayg1970;5456613]
She usually tends to pace except when going uphill or over cavalettis, or if she id being ridden on a firmer surface - my trainer and I have been working on this, but I believe it’s probably more to do with my riding than her (I am a rather new rider), and also perhaps on the footing in our arena, which has been made very deep for our hunter/jumper horses in our facility. I think due to the “shuffling” nature of her hind legs when in gait, they tend to get caught up in all the deep footing and perhaps this makes it easier for her to pace?[/QUOTE]
There are many reasons why some foxtrotters prefer to pace. However, if the horse has been historically a very good foxtrotter (or in other words takes the foxtrot very easily) and suddenly it starts to prefer a pace I would think lameness, most likely in the hind limbs. You case is probably different. If the horse trots up hill but otherwise paces I doubt if it is hind limb lameness. Trotting uphill is harder on hind limbs and back.
Resurrecting this to see how we all feel about this machine now? OP, how did your horse fare?
Resurrecting this again. I wonder why it has not become the standard in lameness exams? It seems like it is really useful.
