Science meet empiric equine orthopedics – employing objective movement analysis and computer vision for unscrambling fundamental diagnostic shortcomings.

Lameness is the most common health issue for horses today and unfortunately equine orthopaedics is a discipline with rather low scientific standard resulting in a widespread and increasing use of pseudo-scientific diagnoses and treatment regimens.

To correctly diagnose orthopaedic lesions the sours of pain needs to be identified by visual lameness assessment to identify the lame limb and the effect of diagnostic analgesia.

Research has shown that this evaluation is VERY difficult shown by low inter-rater agreement also among highly experienced veterinarians. Tools for objective lameness assessment at trot are now available for clinical use. Despite the technique being rather cheap and easy to use many veterinarians do not see the added value to use it.

The systems cannot measure lameness at walk or bilateral lameness which may add important information to identify the painful anatomical region.The aim of this study is therefore to evaluate the accuracy of visual assessment of lameness during lameness exams and to develop objective measures of lameness at walk and bilateral lameness.Since orthopaedic disorders is the major problem in our horses, and the current methodologies for the correct diagnos are insufficient, treatment and rehabilitation are of an accordingly poor quality.This  study will therefore  increase equine welfare by improve the diagnostics reducing unncessary or wrong treatments, and allow future much needed investigations of preventive measures.