By Jeff Skrzypek
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- It's already tough enough for doctors to diagnose what's wrong with human patients, but for veterinarians, it's a challenge just to get the animal to stay still.
However, researchers at Oregon State University have a new tool that could help animal doctors, and it's something you might be using at the gym every day.
Treadmills might be a big help to those trying to stay in shape and be healthy, but now some OSU researchers are taking that very exercise tool to help change the lives of horses. Treating larger animals like horses isn't always the easiest task for veterinarians.
"It's very difficult. We can't really readily ask them to told their breathe or to cough when we want them to," said OSU researcher Erica McKenzie.
And while animal doctors at OSU can't ask horses how they're feeling, what they can do now is keep them in one place and have them run.
"The initial reaction is to stop dead but encouragement with voice and so on they generally start walking," said McKenzie.
And it's not just walking, these researchers will kick it up a notch and have the horse galloping in no time. That's part of why this machine is so valuable.
"It's very difficult to evaluate them at speed if we say go to the track, or if we go to an arena and watch them working in circles around us, it's still very easy for us to miss things," she said.
But in a stable and consistent environment like this facility on campus, veterinarians have the control they need to focus on the horse.
"When the horse is standing still right in front of us, then asked to move at different gaits, we can evaluate it very readily at each different speed," she said.
That means if the animal doctors suspect a certain injury, they can physically monitor how the horse is running just by watching it, or they can dig deeper to check for internal problems like upper airway diseases.
"We can ask them to work at full gallop and we can photograph the inside of their airway as they're running. And only at speed is that disease become apparent," she said.
Researchers say it's not just respiratory diseases that will become more apparent. There might be other things they can diagnose.
"I think there's a lot that we can learn about the physiology of the horse and specific diseases that we can release to other institutions, by having this piece of equipment," said McKenzie.
OSU researchers say in addition to studying and researching horses on the treadmill, they will eventually expand the diagnostic program to include other animals like dogs, pigs and camels.
