Affiliated Veterinary Specialists

News

Local vet hospital launches physical therapy for pets

From the October 22, 2004 print edition of the Orlando Business Journal.

Susan Lundine
Associate Managing Editor, Orlando Business Journal

MAITLAND -- In early October, Blue, a 3-year-old Labrador retriever that competes in field trials in Canada and the United States, suffered from a stroke-type incident that left him paralyzed in his back two legs.

"We were devastated, thinking we were going to have to put our dog down," says owner Cynthia Young, a math professor at the University of Central Florida.

But after undergoing just two weeks of pet physical therapy, Blue has regained 100 percent of the use of his left rear leg and 20 percent of the use of his right rear leg. "He has made remarkable progress," says Young. "A week and a half ago, his back legs were paralyzed. Today, he can walk fine on three legs, and I'm convinced the fourth will be better soon."

Blue is getting physical therapy at Affiliated Veterinary Specialists, a specialty animal hospital in Maitland that began offering the service in June. "A lot of clients asked about it, because they knew it was important in people," says local animal orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jacek de Haan, medical director at Affiliated Veterinary Specialists.

He adds that he heard about pet physical therapy at professional meetings, and that other veterinarians "were publishing good results with physical therapy" such as alleviating pain, restoring mobility and speeding up recovery time.

That's why Affiliated Veterinary Specialists took the plunge to create a physical therapy department. There, the specialty animal hospital provides massage, stretching, range-of-motion exercises, heat/ice therapy and aquatherapy -- the newest physical therapy technique available for dogs that are in too much pain or simply unable to walk on land.

Aquatherapy involves having a dog walk on a treadmill that's submerged in a chlorinated, 400-gallon, warm-water tank. "When they walk underwater, they have stability and support," says de Haan.

The water level in the tank is adjusted to accommodate dogs whose weight ranges from 2.5 pounds to 200 pounds. "The more water, the more buoyancy," says Tricia Davenport, a certified veterinary technician in the new physical therapy department at Affiliated Veterinary Specialists. "The dogs build muscle with the resistance of the water, and it increases their range of motion."

As dogs become stronger, the amount of water is reduced so they are bearing more of their own weight on the $30,000 Ferno Underwater Treadmill. In fact, Affiliated Veterinary Specialists is the second vet location in Florida to own that piece of equipment. The other one is in Miami. "This just became available recently," says de Haan. "We try to have all the newest, best equipment and treatment options."

The aquatherapy is especially beneficial for dogs after they have orthopedic or neurological surgery, as well as those that are overweight, have arthritis or are training for athletic competitions, says de Haan.

For example, a 9-year-old agility champion golden retriever named Dreamer -- owned by Becky Nicholas, who also works in the animal hospital's physical therapy department -- undergoes aquatherapy regularly to help him do better in agility competitions. "You can increase their workout time and endurance without putting wear and tear on their joints and bones," says Nicholas.

Sessions generally begin at five to seven minutes in length and gradually are increased to about 20 minutes at a time, says Davenport. Dogs typically have two aquatherapy sessions a day, two to three times a week, for two to eight weeks depending on the dog's condition. And sometimes Nicholas and Davenport don wet suits to go in the tank with paralyzed or especially small dogs. "We try to make it fun, so we use cookies, squeaker toys, water toys and tennis balls so they want to get in," says Nicholas.

Right now, the animal hospital is doing physical therapy, including aquatherapy, with about 10 dogs a day, for $49 per session, or $79 for two sessions in one day. "Most dogs tolerate it very well," says Davenport. "They'll pull us to the door to get in."

The underwater treadmill has been used with cats, says Davenport, "but there's not as much need for it, because they don't have they same orthopedic problems as dogs. And it would have to be a pretty water-tolerant cat."

The new physical therapy department is part of a $600,000 renovation and expansion the Maitland animal hospital completed in July, which doubled its size to 16,000 square feet. The renovation also added a fourth operating room, a linear accelerator that will begin providing cancer treatments in December and a pet MRI that was used for the first time there on Oct. 19. "We have the only vet MRI in Florida," says de Haan. "There are not many in the world."

In fact, the 12-year-old Affiliated Veterinary Specialists is a rare breed itself. Specialty practices in veterinary medicine are a fairly new trend, said Donald Schaefer, executive director of the Orlando-based Florida Veterinary Medical Association, in a previous interview. Of 550 veterinarians in Central Florida, only a handful are board-certified specialists.

The next closest specialty animal hospital is at the University of Florida in Gainesville, so the Maitland facility draws patients from a 75-mile radius, from Ocala to Lakeland, and from Melbourne to Daytona.

Says de Haan, "We are doing things now that we could only dream of when I was training 15 years ago."

And as for Blue? "He's come quite a ways," says owner Young. "His spirits have gone much higher. He's much happier. He's a great dog, and we're thrilled with the services we're getting there."