The aim of animal / veterinary physiotherapy is to optimise function and performance. Whether the problem is a slight loss of performance or recovery from major injury, physiotherapy can help.

Following an initial assessment, including movement analysis and palpation, an individual treatment plan is carefully formulated.

The most common areas of treatment are:

• Performance enhancement and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries common to the ridden horse and working or competition dog.
• Post-operative rehabilitation for animals with orthopaedic or neurological conditions.
• Enhancement of quality of life in patients with degenerative conditions such as arthritis – slowing degeneration and treating compensatory muscle spasm.

In ideal conditions, nature will gradually heal the injury. However, for many reasons, these conditions are not always easily healable. In these circumstances, the injury will take longer to heal than nature intended or at worst may not heal at all. The aim of the physiotherapist is to optimise these conditions so that the body can heal the injury in its natural time span.

The following are some of the conditions that can be helped by physiotherapy:

• Soft tissue
• Sore/bruised muscles
• Muscle spasm
• Muscle strain
• Muscle tightness
• Muscle atrophy
• Routine checks and maintenance
• Tendons and ligaments
• Ruptured tendons and ligaments of the legs and joints
• Sacroiliac injury
• Cruciate ligament rupture
• Muscle origin and insertion tendon strain
• Optimise post-op repair.
• Orthopaedics
• Optimise repair of fractures both normal and non-union
• Help to ease pain in arthritic and diseased joints and slow down further degeneration
• Improving and maintaining range of movement and muscle tone
• Splints
• Wounds
• Recovery from spinal surgery

Your pet is a part of your family and of course, you want it to have the best possible quality of life – free from pain and discomfort. However, pets do run, jump and bound around. They become involved in accidents and sometimes face injuries. This includes wear and tear on joints, the stresses and strains of an active life and age-related problems, which can all affect pets just as much as humans. Fortunately animals, like people, respond well to physiotherapy.

It’s important to choose an ACPAT member to help your pet because these members are professionals in animal physiotherapy. ACPAT stands for the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Animal Therapy, and members are fully qualified Chartered Physiotherapists, who have trained specifically in physiotherapy and rehabilitation for animals.

Our physiotherapist Kim Gunstone qualified from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 1999 with a BSc Hons in Physiotherapy. In 2005 she undertook her veterinary physiotherapy training at the Royal Veterinary College of London and qualified in 2007 with a Postgraduate Diploma in Veterinary Physiotherapy.

Kim is a Category A member of ACPAT, which is a specialist interest group of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.