Using Movement Sensors to Assess Lying Time in Horses With and Without Angular Limb Deformities.

This research examines the use of movement sensors to study the lying time of horses, in order to understand chronic musculoskeletal diseases. Findings suggest that horses with limb deformities spent significantly less time lying down compared to healthy horses, but this disparity reduced when painkillers were administered.

Objective and Hypothesis

• The study primarily aimed to scrutinize the feasibility of using movement sensors along with analgesics to indicate the existence of restricting pathologies in horses and assessing their lying time.
• Researchers hypothesized that horses suffering from angular limb deformities might show different behavior, mainly in their lying time. If this difference could be eliminated by the administration of analgesics, it would suggest that the shorter lying time was due to discomfort.

Methodology

• The researchers selected four horses with varying degrees of angular limb deformities and another four horses with no afflictions as controls.
• The experiment was implemented in two trials, each conducted at a different paddock. In both trials, horses first went through a baseline phase, then moved on to treatment phases where analgesics were administered.
• Movement sensors were used to measure the horses’ lying time and lying bouts.
• In the initial trial, two different analgesics were tested to ascertain if either would impact the result. As no discernible difference was noted between the two, only one analgesic was used in the subsequent trial.

Findings

• In both trials, the basal mean lying times for horses with ALD were significantly less than the controls. However, the difference became non-significant upon administration of analgesics.
• The findings suggest that the lesser lying time of ALD horses may be due to musculoskeletal discomfort, as analgesics, which mitigate pain, leveled the lying times between ALD horses and controls.
• Despite the small sample size, the study successfully demonstrated that movement sensor technology can effectively measure changes in lying time, indicating potential for use as an indirect assessment tool for chronic musculoskeletal problems in horses.