RVC have been working in collaboration with other universities to discover more accurate techniques for understanding joint behaviour in osteoarthritis. As an Animal Osteopath, I often work with dogs/horses who have this condition. Treatment, home management and rehabilitation can greatly improve quality of life in these cases.
They state: “Osteoarthritis is a condition that causes joints to become painful and stiff. Joints respond to and absorb loads over a wide range of scales over a lifetime by deforming or straining our soft tissue and bone structures. The level of deformation or strain is measured on the nanometre scale within structures such as collagen fibres, on the micron scale in chondrocytes, and the macroscale in bones. Previously these strains have only been measured at the sub-millimetre scale in whole joints during loading. This latest work measured these strains with an accuracy of better than 100 nanometres – more than 1,000 times more precisely – in mouse knee joints at different stages during the onset of osteoarthritis.”
To read more about what the RVC have been up to click on the link below
New Forest Animal Osteopathy 