Canine Comprehensive Mobility Assessment

Mobility, functionality and functional mobility: A review and application for canine veterinary patients

Mobility is an essential aspect of a dog's daily life. It is defined as the ability to move freely and easily and deviations from an animals' normal mobility capabilities are often an indicator of disease, injury or pain. When a dog's mobility is compromised, often functionality (ability to perform activities of daily living [ADL]), is also impeded, which can diminish an animal's quality of life. Given this, it is necessary to understand the extent to which conditions impact a dog's physiological ability to move around their environment to carry out ADL, a concept termed functional mobility. In contrast to human medicine, validated measures of canine functional mobility are currently limited. The aim of this review is to summarise the extent to which canine mobility and functionality are associated with various diseases and how mobility and functional mobility are currently assessed within veterinary medicine. Future work should focus on developing a standardised method of assessing functional mobility in dogs, which can contextualise how a wide range of conditions impact a dog's daily life. However, for a true functional mobility assessment to be developed, a greater understanding of what activities dogs do on a daily basis and movements underpinning these activities must first be established.

An update on mobility assessment of dogs with musculoskeletal disease

Mobility impairments associated with musculoskeletal diseases, such as osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease, affect approximately 200,000 dogs annually and pose a notable challenge to canine health and welfare. Osteoarthritis causes the remodelling of synovial joints, alongside inflammation and impaired mechanical function which can be extremely debilitating. Secondary osteoarthritis commonly affects dogs and can be exacerbated by previous joint abnormalities, such as patellar luxation or cranial cruciate ligament rupture. Although musculoskeletal diseases can affect dogs of any age, the early subtle signs of gait abnormalities are perhaps missed by owners, thus, dogs may be in the latter stages of osteoarthritis progression when they are presented to veterinarians. Dogs showing subtle signs of gait abnormalities must be presented to veterinary practices for acute diagnosis to prevent long-term deterioration. Musculoskeletal diseases, such as osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease, are commonly diagnosed via visible radiographic changes. However, veterinarians can use a combination of subjective and objective clinical scoring systems, such as clinical metrology instruments and gait assessment in conjunction with radiography to aid their diagnosis and longitudinal monitoring of musculoskeletal diseases. These scoring systems may be more sensitive to earlier signs of mobility impairments in dogs, ultimately, promoting increased canine health and welfare by enabling pain reduction, improvement of muscle strength and preservation of joint function. Current canine mobility scoring systems available to veterinarians will be discussed in turn throughout this review for implementation into clinical practice.

Functional measurement of canine muscular fitness: refinement and reliability of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center Sprint Test

Working, sporting, and companion dogs require muscular fitness to perform their daily tasks, competitive activities, and operational functions effectively and with a low risk of injury. There are currently no methods to measure the muscular fitness of dogs who are not debilitated. Sprint performance is highly correlated with muscular fitness in humans, and various sprint assessments are used to measure performance for sporting and tactical athletes. The Penn Vet Working Dog Center Sprint Test (ST) is a 25 m maximal effort sprint from a down position and was developed to be a low-cost measure of muscular fitness suitable for field use. The purpose of this project was to describe the refinements to the ST, detail the performance and measurement protocol, evaluate the measurement inter-rater and intra-rater reliability, characterize the acceleration profile, and explore the inter-day reliability. Both naïve and experienced raters demonstrated excellent intra-rater and inter-rater reliability. The acceleration profile of the dogs in this study was similar to that of average adult human sprinters and demonstrated the role of muscular fitness in performance over this short distance. Finally, a small group of dogs showed moderate inter-day reliability and provided initial performance data to inform future studies. The ST appears to be a reliable measure of canine muscular fitness and could be used to assess performance in healthy dogs and guide the return to sport or work of debilitated dogs.

Modelling Neurological Diseases in Large Animals: Criteria for Model Selection and Clinical Assessment

Issue: The impact of neurological disorders is recognised globally, with one in six people affected in their lifetime and few treatments to slow or halt disease progression. This is due in part to the increasing ageing population, and is confounded by the high failure rate of translation from rodent-derived therapeutics to clinically effective human neurological interventions. Improved translation is demonstrated using higher order mammals with more complex/comparable neuroanatomy. These animals effectually span this translational disparity and increase confidence in factors including routes of administration/dosing and ability to scale, such that potential therapeutics will have successful outcomes when moving to patients. Coupled with advancements in genetic engineering to produce genetically tailored models, livestock are increasingly being used to bridge this translational gap. Approach: In order to aid in standardising characterisation of such models, we provide comprehensive neurological assessment protocols designed to inform on neuroanatomical dysfunction and/or lesion(s) for large animal species. We also describe the applicability of these exams in different large animals to help provide a better understanding of the practicalities of cross species neurological disease modelling. Recommendation: We would encourage the use of these assessments as a reference framework to help standardise neurological clinical scoring of large animal models.