Performance Equine Chiropractic Care

Why does your horse need chiropractic care?

Every day, you and your horse are subjected to the traumas and stressful situations of our environment. For horses, there are several situations that can cause subluxations and the need for chiropractic care is indicated.

• Confinement horses do not get the opportunity to graze, be exposed to various terrains, socialize with other horses, and mobilize. Horses should be out more than they are in a stall.
• Riding - saddles are inherently asymmetric, inappropriate and improper biting and other training aids, poor riding technique, subluxated riders!!!
• Transportation - moving from place to place can be very stressful, loading and unloading, bad trailering
• Trauma/Accidents - slips, falls, casting, etc.
• Birth - both the foal and the mare should be adjusted
• Illness - the nervous system is in charge of all the organ systems within the body: organ illness will affect the nervous system, thereby resulting in subluxations.
• Toxins - chemicals can cause subluxations by disrupting homeostasis.
• Gravity - getting us all - constant force against the biomechanical support system.
• Other - breed variations, behavioral differences, conformational abnormalities
  

What is chiropractic care?

THE BASIC PREMISE OF CHIROPRACTIC CARE

IS TO RECOGNIZE AND CORRECT

DYSFUNCTION BEFORE IT BECOMES DISEASE!

Chiropractic is an art, science, and philosophy.

• Art - the individual skill that the practitioner uses in assessing and treating the animal.
• Science - restores and maintains the integrity of the nervous system housed inside the spinal column through correcting spinal subluxations by chiropractic adjustments.
• Philosophy - concept that the innate intelligence of the body maintains health: the ability of the body to make corrections to maintain homeostasis (stability) in an ever-changing environment.

What is a subluxation?

A vertebral subluxation is a dissrelationship between two adjacent joint surfaces and their associated structures resulting in abnormal function. There are two components of the vertebral subluxation:

• Kinesiopathy - pathology of movement, either hyper or hypomobile.
• Neuropathy - pathology of neural elements, either hyper (muscle spasms) or hypo (atrophy, gland dysfunction).

What makes up the chiropractic examination?

• Posture - Stance, head carriage, hoof and spinal conformation.
• Gait Analysis- walk/trot away and toward examiner, lunge line, riding, backing
• Static Palpation and Muscle Palpation
• Motion Palpation