Veterinary medicine is experiencing a culture shift in the treatment of
http://www.veterinarypracticenews.co...puncturespinal cord injury and disk disease With more veterinarians incorporating integrative physical medicine treatments (i.e., acupuncture, laser therapy and rehabilitation) into their practices, the standards of care for spinal cord injury could well be changing. [B]Research is illustrating that the standard approaches of surg.ery, cage rest or steroids no longer have a rock-solid grasp as the best or only options.
Cage rest, for example, has no evidence in favor but is accruing evidence against. This includes the physical (not to mention, mental and emotional) deterioration brought about by living in a small box with little movement or freedom day after day.1
As stated by the authors of a recent paper on immobilization in paraplegics, “Mechanical loading and movement are essential for the maintenance of the integrity of skeletal tissues including articular structures and cartilage. Prolonged immobilization after spinal cord injury (SCI) has been suggested to be a cause of contractures, periarticular osteoporosis, heterotopic ossification, osteoarthritis and periarticular connective tissue alterations. Lower extremity articular cartilage needs some regimen of joint loading and motion to maintain its native physical and biochemical properties.
As more becomes known about the drawbacks of forced stillness, why do we continue to keep dogs from benefiting from assisted stands and slow, careful walking? Surely, we should be able to monitor and modulate their exercise with sufficient supervision and instruction to keep them moving and strong while they heal.