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BloodHorse.com Articles for "Healthwatch"

HealthWatch: Broodmare Diets

The diet you offer your gestating mare, particularly in the last trimester, can influence development of her placenta as well as the level of immunoglobulins (IgGs) in her colostrum.

 Tuesday, December 29, 2009

HealthWatch: Colic Surgery for Older Horses

Geriatric horses have lower survival rates than younger horses following exploratory colic surgery, but a year later there's no significant difference in survival rates between the age groups.

 Tuesday, December 08, 2009

HealthWatch: Tendon and Ligament Injuries

Tendon and ligament injuries in horses cause both economic and personal hardships for horse owners and industry professionals. A prolonged period of layup and rehabilitation is necessary, but whether the horse will be sound at the end of the rehabilitation period is uncertain. Lameness due to tendon and ligament injury is common in performance horses, affecting up to 25% of racehorses over their careers.

 Tuesday, December 01, 2009

HealthWatch: Horse Whinnies Packed with Info

Through their whinnies, horses convey specific information about their identities, including sex, height, and weight, according to French researchers.

 Thursday, October 15, 2009

HealthWatch: Colicking Horses at Risk

Horses with colic are at a higher risk for developing disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), a life-threatening blood-clotting disorder that can cause excessive bleeding or excessive clotting.

 Wednesday, August 19, 2009

HealthWatch: Headshaking

There are times when a horse can't stop shaking or tossing its head to a seemingly inapparent sensation; such incessant behavior is known as headshaking.

 Tuesday, August 11, 2009

HealthWatch: Diarrhea's Diverse Causes

Despite a horse's apparently sturdy exterior, his various internal body systems are delicate -- particularly his gastrointestinal (GI) system.

 Tuesday, August 04, 2009

HealthWatch: Preventing infectious diseases

Infectious diseases are a constant risk to the health and welfare of horses. Along with vaccination, preventive management techniques are critical to disease prevention.

 Tuesday, July 28, 2009

HealthWatch: Lower Airway Inflammation

Based on diagnostic tests currently used in human medicine, researchers from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom say an easy and noninvasive analysis of "exhaled breath condensate" (EBC) could lead to improved diagnosis and monitoring of lower airway disease in horses.

 Tuesday, July 14, 2009

HealthWatch: EEE, WEE, & VEE

Eastern, Western, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis (EEE, WEE, and VEE) are arboviruses -- meaning they are transmitted by blood-feeding insects or ticks -- and these pathogens can cause fatal neurologic disease in horses.

 Tuesday, July 07, 2009

HealthWatch: Beat the Heat

Horses have efficient natural thermoregulatory systems to cool themselves, but sometimes they are overwhelmed and cannot compensate for the heat. Hyperthermia or heatstroke results when a horse is unable to control its internal temperature and it starts to rise.

 Tuesday, June 30, 2009

HealthWatch: Pastured Horses More Fit

Horses are better able to maintain fitness when turned out on large pasture, according to Dr. Patty Graham-Thiers of Virginia Intermont College, in Bristol, Va. She presented her recent study results at the 2009 Equine Science Society Meeting, held May 29-31 in Keystone, Colo.

 Tuesday, June 23, 2009

HealthWatch: Shock Wave Therapy Speeds Wound

Dr. Scott McClure and colleagues from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University recently published a study on the effects of extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) on wounds. In their study, McClure and colleagues created a 4-cm and a 3-cm full-thickness wound on both front and rear cannon bones, respectively, of six healthy horses.

 Tuesday, June 16, 2009

HealthWatch: Stem Cell Therapy for Tendonitis

According to Dr. Alan J. Nixon of Cornell University, veterinarians might be able to treat horses with injuries to their superficial digital flexor tendons (SDFTs) effectively by injecting stem cells directly into the injured tendon using cells that were harvested and expanded from the horse's own bone marrow.

 Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Health Watch: Foot and Limb Deformities

In a presentation to the American Association of Equine Practitioners on hoof deformities in foals and recommendations for correcting or managing them, Dr. Bob Hunt of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington called for caution, especially in trying to use hoof trimming/extensions to correct a limb deformity.

 Wednesday, June 03, 2009

HealthWatch: Update on EPM

EPM remains a rare cause of neurologic disease in horses -- less than 0.5% of horses are diagnosed with EPM annually in the United States. However, if you do the math, 0.5% of all the horses residing in the United States still amounts to several thousand horses diagnosed with EPM each year.

 Wednesday, May 27, 2009

HealthWatch: Sand Colic and Plasma

Rarely do we see our horses lapping up sand like it's some rare commodity.

 Tuesday, May 19, 2009

HealthWatch: Surface Safety and Medication

3D dynamometric shoe gives insight into the biomechanical effects of diverse surfaces on the entire musculoskeletal system; Nanomedicine is a rapidly expanding field and is anticipated to have a huge impact on equine practice in the not-so-distant future.

 Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Healthwatch: Breakthroughs in Airway Disease & Spinal Injury Treatment

Until recently, the only sure way of knowing if a horse was free of lower airway disease was through endoscopy, writes Marcia King in the April edition of The Horse. But scientists in England have developed another technique that involves collecting and measuring the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the moisture of the horse's exhaled air.

 Thursday, April 08, 2004

Healthwatch: Research Links Cushing's to Laminitis

Cushing's disease (CD) has been identified as the most common cause of laminitis among horses seen at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center. Dr. Mark Donaldson, an assistant professor at the university's School of Veterinary Medicine, led the research effort.

 Thursday, April 08, 2004

Canker's Cause is Mystery

Canker is an anaerobic infection in the superficial epithelium of the hoof (the horn-producing tissue of the foot).

 Tuesday, October 17, 2000

Prognosis Guarded for Tendon Lacerations

Somewhere between 50%-60% of horses that suffer tendon lacerations return to some type of performance, which is often less strenuous than the previous level of work.

 Tuesday, October 10, 2000

Pin Firing Acceptable Form of Therapy

The driving idea behind pin firing is that it makes chronic inflammations acute and allows them to heal.

 Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Osselets

An osselet is a traumatic arthritis of the fetlock of the equine front leg. Left unchecked, osselets compromise the horse's athletic potential and his ability to move soundly and fluidly.

 Tuesday, August 29, 2000

Pour-on Fly Repellent Available Through Vets

A new insecticide is touted as controlling horn, stable, deer, and horse flies at a fairly high rate for up to two or more weeks with one application, based on efficacy control information.

 Tuesday, August 22, 2000

Study Shows Echinacea Improves Blood Quality in Horses

A study demonstrates that echinacea acts as an immuno-stimulant and a hematinic agent in horses, providing a unique scientific rationale for feeding this popular herb as a supplement to both improved immune function and overall blood quality.

 Tuesday, August 22, 2000