Patterson Veterinary Equine Division’s Post

Transcript

Though my name is Doctor Jennifer Vitucci and I am currently one of the professional services veterinarians here at Zomedica, I've been with Pulse Vet, now Zomedica, for almost three years. So I think the trends overall, just interestingly is how common rehabilitation therapy has become, right? And just how many more people are offering it. And really to me, how many more clients are looking for it. Clients are very used to now if they're having a big surgery, then they're kind of interested in what's the rehabilitation look like, How do I get my dog back on their feet? And obviously that extends past just. Surgery, but I think that that's been really the most interesting part to me and then all the different modalities and therapies and specialties that have come along with it becoming so much more popular. It's in equine and companion animal, but especially in companion animal. So shockwave therapy you'll is nothing to do with electric shock. That's the first thing it's kind of a misnomer to hear the term shockwave, but that is simply a. Physics term for a high energy sound wave and the way that it works is that sound energy is transmitted into the body. It's applied superficially, it's very non invasive, and when that sound energy is absorbed at the cellular level, that cell releases cytokines and growth factors important in the healing process. So that sound energy is essentially initiating the body's own healing process. And it's very good at doing a few things, increasing blood flow. Controlling pain and inflammation and stimulating bone growth. So it's really good at just initiating that whole healing process. And it works for all sorts of musculoskeletal indications in our patients. So bone healing, if we have fractures, if we had a surgery, our soft tissue injuries, so tendon or ligament injuries like shoulder injuries, partial cruciate tears in our dogs. And then chronic pain in OA is kind of the biggest category. So anywhere that you can get arthritis, you can use shockwave therapy and it helps to control the pain and inflammation. And it's actually been shown to slow the progression of disease. So it actually helps to slow that cycle that we get into once we start having arthritis in the joint. And then last but not least place that it works amazing is on wounds. So things that are healing by second intention, degloving injuries, lick granulomas, things that are very difficult to heal. Shockwave therapy does a wonderful job at speeding up that healing and improving the quality of that healing as well. This is such a great modality to be able to add in for those patients to help with pain control and can sometimes get them off of the pharmaceuticals so they don't have to take daily. Medication. On the equine side, similar things, those tendon and ligament injuries that are so common and then also more of a maintenance package, right? A lot of our working and performance horses, they use shockwave therapy to keep them in the best shape possible. So not only if they have injuries, right, Suspensory ligament injuries. This was a game changer, adding in shockwave and then kissing spines, which is a huge issue, and then also again just the muscles of the back. Underneath that saddle where they just get sore and we want to make sure they can keep performing to their highest level, we can add in shockwave therapy, easy, non invasive, a couple treatments and get everybody right back on the road to success. Yeah, so shockwave, right? There's so many modalities now, which is wonderful for both small animal and equine. And I think where shockwave fits in is right alongside. All of those but a little bit before them because again, it is non invasive. It's not something that we have to give or inject. It's something that we can easily do and it doesn't prevent any future therapy that might need to occur, right. So if they need to move on to PRP or get an injection or you know be on oral meds, if they're small animal, we can still do that. It doesn't preclude us from using it in any other situation. And a lot of people originally were thinking. It was for rehabs or surgeries, but really it moves into the general practice space very easily, right? Our clients are very used to laser therapy. And the great part about Shockwave compared to laser is the treatment protocol is much easier. It's one to three treatments 2 weeks apart with long lasting effects. So you can use it in very similar things that people are using laser now for maintenance, but with an easier treatment protocol, a little easier for the practice. A little easier for the owners, and so it fits, I think, in all sorts of practices. You don't need to be specialized in any one thing to find a good use for it. And to me, the sooner you use it on a lot of these things, the better.