health & wellbeing Five
common sport horse injuries
Injuries can range from a minor bump or bruise to career-ending tendon or joint damage, but some are more common than others – and here are just five of them.....
Suspensory Ligament Injuries - Acute front suspensory tears are a particular danger for eventers and jumpers because speed and jumping increase the load on the forelimbs and the chances of a misstep. Hind suspensory injuries may be more common in dressage horses because they work more off their hindquarters. Risk increases with work level and intensity, poor footing and lack of fitness.
Deep Digital Flexor Tendon Damage - The tendon stretches taut when your horse weights his foot and at the moment of breakover, when his weight passes over the toe and the heel begins to lift. If the stress is too great, fibres may tear or pull away from the coffin bone. This section of the tendon may also become chronically inflamed and thickened from repeated stress, a condition called tendinitis.
Bone Bruise - The foot and fetlock come under tremendous force and that force is focused on the small areas where bones meet. Bruising is caused by impact or landing after a jump or working on hard ground, so jumpers and eventers are most at risk.
Inflamed Joints - Inflamed joints occur across the board, typically when there’s a sudden change in work level or intensity?a dressage horse is asked to move up a level too quickly, say, or a hunter does more at a show than he’s used to. Actions such as jumping, work at collected gaits, tight turns and small circles are especially hard on the joints. Unfamiliar footing is another risk factor.
Sore Muscles - Dressage horses asked to collect and maintain a frame as they work often become sore in the back, hindquarters and gaskins. Heavy muscling seems to add to the problem. Hunters and jumpers may develop similar problems if ‘forced’ into an outline for long periods as the horse has no chance to stretch and relax his back and neck.
Equine Page 30
Equine injury, psychology and evolution
An alternative approach from ArcEquine
The horse has evolved over millions of years to walk the plains, eat grass, reproduce and take flight from predators in order to survive. These traits are firmly embedded in its DNA and the length of time man has used the horse for his own purposes – around 4000 years – is a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, so the horse is still a flight animal with every natural instinct intact.
This explains why, in times of either physical or psychological stress, it is very unlikely that the horse’s evolutionary ‘programming’ will be overcome by any bond with humans built up through mutual respect and training. As a result, stress can and does manifest in a number of ways, including the development of behavioural problems or lameness for which a definitive diagnosis is elusive. The physical and the psychological aspects of health and wellbeing are inextricably linked and it is now accepted by leading psychiatrists working in the field of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that there is never a physical injury without an associated psychological injury.
In our management of working and competition horses, working ‘with’ the horse’s natural instincts is increasingly understood to be of significant importance in maintaining both physical health and psychological wellbeing. Chronic stress can and often does result in physical symptoms and similarly, traumatic physical injury will inevitably have a psychological effect.
Holistic healthcare is not a new term and in the context of working and competition horses, managing psychological health is known to be a powerful tool in maintaining physical health. If things do go wrong, reviewing
psychological stressors in the context of evolution is essential.
Ian Thirkell, Managing Director of ArcEquine, the company behind the ArcEquine microcurrent healing technology explains more: “Our work with an eminent Professor of Psychiatry, who is a leading expert on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, teaches that to enable healing of a physical injury, it is essential to first eliminate all trauma, both physical and psychological, before progressing to a rehabilitation phase, which in the case of horses, should take full account of the horse’s evolutionary traits.
“An injured horse in its natural environment will not remain static in one location, as it has to do when on box rest, preferring to move quietly from one area of cover to another, keeping itself physically safe from
predators and at the same time, it feels safe ‘psychologically’. By behaving in this manner, it is putting a ‘load’ through the injured tissues and this is how nature encourages tissue repair.
“As the problem resolves, so the horse moves more in a given time period, systematically increasing the load and stimulating more repair. By comparison, an extended period of box rest induces chronic psychological stress, which is not conducive to tissue repair or the long term outcome, either physical and /or psychological. The rehabilitation protocols we recommend utilise nature’s evolutionary approach to rehabilitation and are available online at
www.arcequine.com together with more information about how psychological stress is inextricably linked to physical manifestations of disease and injury in horses.”
More about ArcEquine
• Since the very start of research and anecdotal use of microcurrent technology in 2002, the ArcEquine team has collaborated with a Psychiatrist, Professor Gordon Turnbull BSc, MB, ChB, FRCP, FRCPsych, a specialist in Trauma and probably the leading European authority on PTSD.
• The ArcEquine team also collaborates with Professor Tim Watson, a Physiotherapist who is the acknowledged academic authority on Electrotherapy. He lectures to Physiotherapists (and others) worldwide (www.
electrotherapy.org)
• Leading international riders in all major disciplines use ArcEquine microcurrent technology on both their
horses and themselves
• ArcEquine’s microcurrent technology was granted formal approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) earlier in 2016, opening the way for clinical research and trials into the human application of this innovative healthcare technology.
• ArcEquine microcurrent kits are available from the online store at
www.arcequine.com and cost £540.00 inc VAT. Component manufacture for the microcurrent units, together with assembly and fulfilment are all carried out within the UK. Discount code AE5012 will get you £60.00 off the price at the checkout.
www.theequinesite.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64