Animal!Chiropractic! · Animal!Chiropractic!!...
Transcript of Animal!Chiropractic! · Animal!Chiropractic!!...
Animal Chiropractic
Animal Chiropractic is an exciting and rapidly emerging treatment modality for
musculoskeletal pain, dysfunction, and other disorders. There are currently two schools accredited to teach animal chiropractic, both located in the Midwest. The current course takes 5 months to complete, followed by final exams at the school, and then a national certification exam. Dr. Israelsen received his training at Options for Animals, the original animal chiropractic educational program.
According to our current understanding of animal chiropractic, chiropractic problems occur when individual joints develop an abnormal motion. This motion may be decreased motion, absent motion, or an inability to move a joint through its entire range of motion. A joint may become fixed in any portion of its normal range of motion, and when this occurs, pain, muscle spasm, nerve dysfunction, circulatory problems, metabolic problems, and behavioral problems may occur. Animal chiropractic is the science of restoring normal motion and normal joint dynamics to the animal. When used either alone or in combination with medical, acupuncture, or herbal therapies, chiropractic has proven to be a highly successful method of improving overall health and function.
In most cases, chiropractic problems arise in the spinal column, and directly affect spinal cord and spinal nerves, but occasionally chiropractic problems may be found in extremities, including shoulder, elbow, carpus (wrist), toes, and even tail! Due to the significant “overlap” in the effects of the nervous system, a problem in the pelvis can easily cause neck pain, and neck restriction can cause limping, etc. Quadruped animals are great compensators, and develop ways of moving to compensate for pain in one area, resulting in overuse and eventual pain in other areas. It is often only when the compensatory pain becomes evident that we realize something is wrong.
Animal chiropractic is often combined with X-‐ray analysis, physical therapy, acupuncture, and/or herbal therapy to reach a diagnosis and treatment plan. Although our most common cases involve musculoskeletal pain, we have seen resolution or improvement in gastrointestinal, seizure, and reproductive problems as well.
Chiropractic care is not limited to small animals only, and about half of our caseload is equine care. Performance horses such as dressage, barrel racers, racehorses, and roping horses have all benefited from our care. Performance enhancement is often seen, as are improvements in behavioral issues such as saddling, being “cinchy”, kicking, refusing jumps, etc. At a rodeo it is not uncommon to see the cowboys and their horses receiving chiropratic care! As we demand more from performance animals, the benefit of chiropractic care becomes apparent, and well worth our while to pursue. Not only do they gain an ability to perform at a higher level, but also our animals are more comfortable and happy doing what they do best.