The aim of this study was to investigate if low-level laser therapy (LLLT) can modulate acute inflammation and tumor necrosis factor (TNFalpha) levels.
LLLT can reduce TNFalpha expression after acute immunocomplex lung injury in rats, but LLLT dose appears to be critical for reducing TNFalpha release.
To determine short- and long-term rates of successful outcomes of surgical and nonsurgical treatments for overweight dogswith cranial cruciate ligament rupture (CCLR).
Overweight dogs with CCLR treated via surgical and nonsurgical methods had better outcomes than dogs treated via nonsurgical methods alone. However, almost two-thirds of the dogs in the nonsurgical treatment group had a successful outcome at the 52-week evaluation time.
To evaluate the influence of shock wave therapy (SWT) on radiographic evidence of bone healing after tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO).
Forty-two dogs (50 stifles) were included in the statistical analysis. No major complications were observed and all osteotomies healed uneventfully. The median healing scores were significantly higher at eight weeks postoperatively for the SWT group compared to the SHAM group for the 10-point (p <0.0002) and 5-point scoring systems (p <0.0001).
Ten Labrador retrievers and their owners undertook a program to determine the effect of passive stretching on the dogs’ osteoarthritic joints, which had a restricted range of motion. The range of motion of the joints was measured before and after the 21-day study, during which the owners performed 10 passive stretches for a hold of 10 seconds twice daily. Goniometric measurements showed that the passive stretching had significantly increased the range of motion of the joints.
The results show that passive stretching can effectively increase the range of movement of the osteoarthritic joints of labrador retrievers.
Ice is applied following a soft-tissue injury on the basis of clinical information. This study investigates the relationship between ice therapy (cryotherapy) and edema by determining microvascular permeability before and after contusion with and without icetherapy and provides data supporting a reduction in edema following cryotherapy.
The application of ice significantly decreased microvascular permeability following striated muscle contusion. The results of this study demonstrated that microvascular permeability is increased following a contusion coincident with significant leukocyte-endothelial interactions. However, microvascular permeability was significantly reduced following cryotherapy, a treatment demonstrated to reduce the number of rolling and adherent leukocytes. This association suggests that the reduction in edema in injured skeletal muscle following cryotherapy may be due to a reduction in leukocyte-endothelial interactions.
Exercise has been shown to reduce age-related losses in cognitive function including learning and memory, but the mechanisms underlying this effect remain poorly understood. Memory formation occurs in stages that include an initial acquisition phase, an intermediate labile phase, and then a process of consolidation which leads to long-term memory formation. An effective way to examine the mechanism by which exercise improves memory is to introduce the intervention (exercise), post-acquisition, making it possible to selectively examine memory storage and consolidation. Accordingly we evaluated the effects of post-trial exercise (10 min on a treadmill) on memory consolidation in aged canines both right after, an hour after, and 24 h after acute exercise training in concurrent discrimination, object location memory (OLM), and novel object recognition tasks.
In summary, the results of this study indicate that acute and chronic exercise are both effective against the functional deficits associated with cognitive aging. Exercise may therefore be a viable training mechanism to improve cognitive reserve in the brain and bolster resiliency against the consequences of brain aging.
To compare short- and long-term functional and radiographic outcome of cranial cruciate ligament (CrCL) injury in dogstreated with postoperative physical rehabilitation and either tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO) or lateral fabellar suture stabilization(LFS).
No significant difference in outcome as determined by ground reaction forces or radiographic OA scores were found between dogs with CrCL injury treated with LFS or TPLO.
Laser phototherapy has been widely used to relieve pain for more than 30 years, but its efficacy remains controversial. To ascertain the overall effect of phototherapy on pain, we aggregated the literature and subjected the studies to statistical meta-analysis.
Fifty-two effect sizes were computed from the 22 articles that met the inclusion criteria. The resulting overall mean effect size was highly significant; d = +0.84 (95% confidence interval = 0.44-1.23). The effect size remained significant even when a high outlying d value was conservatively excluded from the analysis; d = +0.66 (95% confidence interval = 0.46-0.86). The fail-safe number associated with the overall treatment effect, that is, the number of additional studies in which phototherapy has negative or no effect on pain needed to negate the overall large effect size of +0.84, was 348.
The study aims were to evaluate the effects of radial shock wave therapy (RSWT) in dogs with hip osteoarthritis (OA) using clinical assessment and kinetic analysis.
Outcomes of this study suggested beneficial effects of RSWT in dogs with hip osteoarthritis.
Laser therapy (aka photobiomodulation) is often used to treat OA in veterinary patients, but the evidence to support this treatment is weak. At the time of this publication, there was one single prior publication investigating laser therapy for dogs with elbow OA (Looney et. al, Can Vet J 2018). This study found that with the laser and protocol studied (980 nm, 5-12 W, CW, 1-2.4W/cm2, 10-19 J/cm2, non-contact mode, scanning method; treatment 2x week for 3 weeks then once a week for 3 weeks), laser-treated dogs (n=11) showed significantly (p=0.001) greater reduction in lameness compared to sham (n=9) treated dogs. NSAID dose was also able to be decreased in 9 of the 11 laser-treated dogs. The authors of the current study (Barale et. al) aimed to report the clinical outcomes following a different laser therapy protocol in dogs with OA.
This retrospective report provides a basis for future investigations, needed to clarify whether laser therapy may be beneficial to treat canine OA-associated pain. The preliminary findings are promising and suggest that LLLT may help to reduce the analgesic administration and improving client satisfaction and the quality of life of dogs with OA.
