Abstract
In veterinary practice, a thorough gait examination is essential in the clinical workup of any orthopedic patient, including the large population of dogs with chronic pain as a result of osteoarthritis. The traditional visual gait examination is, however, a subjective discipline, and systems for kinetic gait analysis may potentially offer an objective alternative for gait assessment by the measurement of ground reaction forces. In order to avoid unnecessary testing of patients, a thorough, stepwise evaluation of the diagnostic performance of each system is recommended before clinical use for diagnostic purposes. The aim of the study was to evaluate the Tekscan pressure-sensitive walkway system by assessing precision (agreement between repetitive measurements in individual dogs) and overlap performance (the ability to distinguish dogs with lameness due to osteoarthritis from clinically healthy dogs). Direction of travel over the walkway was investigated as a possible bias. Symmetry indices are commonly used to assess lameness by comparing ground reaction forces across different combinations of limbs in each dog. However, SIs can be calculated in several different ways and specific recommendations for optimal use of individual indices are currently lacking. Therefore the present study also compared indices in order to recommend a specific index preferable for future studies of canine osteoarthritis. Forty-one clinically healthy dogs and 21 dogs with osteoarthritis were included in the study. High precision was demonstrated. The direction of travel over the walkway was excluded as a possible bias. A significant overlap was observed when comparing ground reaction forces measured in dogs with osteoarthritis compared to clinically healthy dogs. In some affected dogs, symmetry indices comparing contralateral limbs differed from clinically healthy dogs, but in general, the overlap performance was insufficient and, consequently, general use of this method for diagnostic purposes in dogs with osteoarthritis cannot be recommended.
Highlights
Canine patients are commonly presented in small animal veterinary practice with lameness of various degrees and causes
Comparable values of all parameters were observed between measurements obtained from contralateral thoracic and pelvic limbs, respectively (Fig 1, p = 0.42–1.0), whereas significantly higher peak vertical force, vertical impulse and maximum peak pressure were observed in thoracic limbs compared to the ipsilateral pelvic limbs (Fig 1, p
symmetry indices (SI) were calculated across right thoracic limb (RF), left thoracic limb (LF), right pelvic limb (RH), and left pelvic limb (LH)
Summary
Canine patients are commonly presented in small animal veterinary practice with lameness of various degrees and causes. One group of commercially available pressure measurement systems is the pressure-sensitive walkway system (PSW), which permits sensitive and objective gait analysis by conversion of pressure measurements to GRFs [7]. Such systems are considered to be reliable and simple methods for evaluating, quantifying and monitoring lameness in dogs [8] with high diagnostic sensitivity and specificity [9]. The diagnostic performance of PSW and force plate gait analysis has been extensively studied in clinically healthy dogs [12,13,14,15,16,17] and dogs with various causes of moderate or severe grades of lameness, e.g. dogs with hip dysplasia [7], cranial cruciate ligament rupture [8, 18, 19], experimentally-induced stifle arthritis [3], external fixation of tibial osteotomy [4], myelopathies [20], and various other orthopedic disorders [9]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
