Spinal Manipulation Therapy
Dr. Rainee Stoddart is a certified Veterinary Spinal Manipulation Therapist (VSMT), a certification that involves over 200 hours of training at the Veterinary Chiropractic Learning Center.
You may be more familiar with the term Equine Chiropractor. The word “chiropractor”, as it stands, is a protected term. This means that only those who have attended school for 4 years to obtain their Doctor of Chiropractic degree are able to refer to themselves as a chiropractor.
As Dr Stoddart is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) and not a Doctor of Chiropractic, the treatment she can offer to your horses is referred to as veterinary spinal manipulation therapy (VSMT). At the Veterinary Chiropractic Learning Center veterinarians and chiropractors train alongside one another to learn the skills and techniques required to be successful at Veterinary Spinal Manipulation Therapy (VSMT).
Many of you may already use a chiropractor as part of your own human health care team and therefore are already aware of some of the benefits chiropractic care can offer. If you are less familiar with the practice, here is an explanation of what it exactly involves. VSMT is used to address subluxations; in this context a subluxation refers to an abnormal relationship between two adjacent bones. Simply put, there is a restriction in the joint mobility. This abnormal relationship may result in a reduced range of motion in the joint, problems within the muscles or ligaments that act on those joints, or even neurologic consequences.
VSMT uses mobilization, manipulation and adjustments to address these subluxations. An adjustment applied to a joint with a subluxation can help break up adhesions, improve joint motion and re-establish a normal pattern of neurologic activity. There is a much wider variety of cases in which VSMT may be beneficial than what you might imagine. The first use of VSMT that might come to mind is improving performance in our equine athletes, but VSMT also has a lot of value in the rehabilitation of an injury or improving quality of life in senior horses that have osteoarthritis.
If you have any questions
or would like to set up
an initial appointment(s),
please contact the office
(705) 722-3232
info@centralontariovet.com
