Objektiv rörelseanalys
ett stöd vid den visuella bedömningen av hälta hos hund?
Lame dogs are a common group of patients for the practicing veterinarian. In the
literature it is described how a clinical examination can be performed, based on
general clinical-, orthopedic- and neurological examination, and visual evaluation
of the dog when standing and during motion. For research, objective gait analysis
systems are also used to study clinically healthy and lame dogs during motion.
The aim of this degree project was to compare objective kinematic gait analysis
with a visual evaluation of dogs with different types of lameness. The project was
a pilot study to show if objective gait analysis could be used as a support for the
visual examination.
Ten lame dogs of different breeds and with different diagnoses were included in
the study. They were all patients at the University Animal hospital, Uppsala. The
dogs were filmed outdoors with a video camera and indoors on a treadmill with
500-Hz (High speed) infra-red cameras, recording 3D kinematic data from
reflective markers placed at defined anatomical locations on the dog.
The visual evaluation was based on the outdoor film. The objective gait analysis
was based on eight variables selected from the kinematic data.
For some of the lame dogs the objective gait analysis detected changes in the
motion pattern that we couldn?t see on the movies from the video camera. In these
cases the objective kinematic gait analysis could be a complement to the visual
evaluation. Considering the factors that affect the dogs? motion when walking on
a treadmill and the errors connected to kinematics based on skin mounted
markers, the method could be used as a complement to traditional lameness
examination in the orthopedic clinic.