Chiropractic treatment can help four-legged patients perform at their peak
04.11.09
Patients of Equine Health Solutions in Raymore are remarkably well-adjusted.</p><p>In early September, owner Keith Wagner completed a certification program in animal chiropractic care. And no, he doesn’t require horses to lie on a table while he cracks their necks.</p><p>“We are not trying to adjust a 1,200-pound horse but just one four- or five-pound bone,” he said. “Chiropractic is simply using a high-velocity, low-amplitude force on a specific motion unit or joint.”</p><p>Wagner started as a general-practice veterinarian more than 20 years ago and then began to specialize in equine care. His practice does general medicine and surgery, with an emphasis on lameness, as well as dentistry and reproductive work.</p><p>Even as he was treating horses, he wondered if there might be a way to prevent some of the problems he was seeing.</p><p>“In my practice, there were times when I noticed that something was missing from the care,” he said. “My thirst to find out what it was eventually led me toward chiropractic.”</p><p>Although the concept of animal chiropractic may sound modern, it has been around at least as long as its human counterpart. D.D. Palmer, considered the founder of human chiropractic, also taught animal chiropractic as long ago as 1895, Wagner said.</p><p>The practice went dormant for a number of years before being revived in England in the 1970s. It has been growing in popularity in the United States over the past two decades.</p><p>“We consider chiropractic to be a complementary therapy,” said Sally Baker, director of public relations for the American Association of Equine Practitioners in Lexington, Ky., the world’s largest association for equine veterinarians. “It’s still a specialized niche, but it definitely is growing in popularity.”</p><p>Twenty percent of the association’s members practice complementary or alternative services for their clients, according to a 2008 survey. Of that 20 percent, 49 percent of the veterinarians said they provide chiropractic treatment.</p><p>Just as with human chiropractic, the objective is to create balance and harmony in the body. That is especially important in horses, where four lower legs roughly the size of human legs support an animal weighing hundreds of pounds.</p><p>“When joints are not moving normally, the horse compensates in the motion of other joints,” Wagner said. “Chiropractic corrects that.”</p><p>After contracting with an outside provider for several years, Wagner took advantage of a slow time in his practice to become certified himself. The school he attended, Options for Animals College of Animal Chiropractic in Wellsville, Kan., is one of only three such schools in the United States.</p><p>“One of the big reasons why I decided to go through the course was that my practice had slowed down because of the economy, and I had more down time to take the courses,” he said. “I felt that the training would benefit me when the economy does turn around.”</p><p>Students must be practicing veterinarians or chiropractors, or a veterinary or chiropractic student. Wagner attended classes for four or five days a month over a six-month period to qualify for certification. He believes chiropractic and traditional veterinary medicine go hand in hand.</p><p>“The general difference between the two is that chiropractic is more preventive, and medical is more for after we have seen the early clinical signs, such as joint inflammation or graded lameness, that are beyond the scope of chiropractic,” he said.
Source: Kansas City Star
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