Conservative physiotherapy treatment in 4 patients with brachial plexus avulsion (3 dogs and 1 cat)

Herunterladen

I. Terruzzi M. Mariani
Energy For Health [22], 2022

The avulsion of the brachial plexus is a pathology often resulting from trauma and quite frequent in the clinic of small animals. In addition to drug therapy with prednisone, it is important to start physiotherapy immediately to counteract neurogenic atrophy. There is no surgical treatment and the alternative to a physiotherapeutic intervention is represented by the amputation of the involved limb, in order to avoid self-trauma. Currently, an integrated physiotherapeutic intervention is applied, consisting in appropriate exercise, laser therapy and diathermy. In this work, the outcome of conservative treatment was evaluated for 4 subjects suffering from avulsion of the brachial plexus, which arrived at the "Livorno Veterinary Physiotherapy" Clinic. Different parameters were studied and the pre- and post-conservative physiotherapy clinic compared. The 50% had a positive outcome with recovery of the autonomous movement; the remaining patients did not have clinical recovery, resulting in a permanent loss of autonomy. The present study highlighted that an important variable to treatment success is the time interval from diagnosis to the start of therapy: the best results were obtained for shorter waiting times.