Course Summary

This 20 minute eCPD tutorial discusses hydrotherapy.  This form of rehabilitation  is becoming an increasingly popular treatment for veterinary patients. These patients may be at different stages and have different rehabilitation needs, for example:

• Pre-operative patients  – to improve strength and muscle mass before a femoral head and neck excision arthroplasty
• Post-operative patients – cranial cruciate ligament repair
• Non-surgical patients –  hip or elbow dysplasia

This tutorial will guide you through ways to develop hydrotherapy treatment techniques and plans for surgical and non-surgical patients. The lecture will show when and how to progress hydrotherapy plans, and how to utilise outcome measures to evaluate hydrotherapy treatment plans, and progress the patient back to the highest level of function.  Hydrotherapy may be used to:

• Maintain or increase joint range of motion by using the buoyancy effect of water.
• Improve muscle strength using water to provide resistance to the patient.
• For gait re-education by controlling the treadmill belt speed, altering the water level and controlling the work time: rest ratio.
• Reduce pain by reducing concussive forces passing through osteoarthritic joints, also the warmth of the water will reduce muscle tension and have a compressive effect on swollen tissues and joints.
• Improve stamina by pacing the rehabilitation programme to meet the patients’ needs, and to achieve short and long term goals.

Course Tutor

Donna Carver BSC(Hons) Physiotherapy, DipAVN (Surgical), RVN, MCSP
Pain and Rehabilitation Service, University of Glasgow

Course Length

The course is worth 20 minutes of CPD for UK delegates and 0.5 AVNAT points  for Australian and New Zealand delegates

The course is provided with unlimited lifetime access for on-demand learning

Course Notes

Unfortunately course notes are not available to accompany this tutorial