Understanding Lameness
Lameness is one of the most prevalent veterinary clinic complaints in horses and an important reason for early ending of a sport horse is career to manage and prevent injury a thorough orthopedic examination is essential. This includes a visual inspection and palpation followed by a dynamic clinical examination.
It is known that most gait alterations can be adequately assessed by experienced clinicians through subjective visual examination. Nonetheless, it has been suggested in previous studies that agreement between the subjective evaluation of lameness between equine veterinarians is low, especially for horses presented with mild lameness. Furthermore, this subjective evaluation is limited by the maximal resolution of the human eye which limits the perception of asymmetry.
Objective examination of asymmetry
Orthopedic examinations form an important part of daily activities at our clinic. The clinical complaints of horses presented can vary from a meaningful lameness on one or multiple limbs, to low-grade locomotive abnormalities presented as poor performance. To assist in the clinical observation and decision making, the Qualisys motion capture system offers objective information regarding the horses gait.
The system allows the group to evaluate asymmetry by placing reflective markers on the head, withers, and pelvis as asymmetry is identified in a comparative examination between the left and right step of the stride on straight lines and circles.
The facility uses a 24-camera Qualisys 7+ motion capture system for indoor and outdoor analysis of the equine patients. The QHorse Analysis Module is used for instantaneous reporting of the asymmetries identified during the capture. Due to its excellent sensitivity, the camera system can detect the slightest asymmetry. This makes it a valuable tool in the differentiation and assessment of changes in gait parameters used to quantify lameness and evaluate performance. In some cases this can lead to early recognition of a problem and thereby prevention of injury, which is one of the main goals of equine orthopedics.
The Qualisys motion capture system helps us read the horse and translate what the horse wants to tell us.
Sofie Van De Velde, PhD
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