Limb Sensors for Equine Diagnostics, Performance Evaluations

Lamenesses are frequently characterized by asymmetric limb motion, Bragança said. Strapped to different sections of a horse's body, inertial measurement units (IMUs) are becoming useful tools for evaluating asymmetry and body lean angles. Dutch and Belgian scientists are now looking at ways to gather reliable movement data from IMUs placed on horses' limbs, head, body, and pelvis. And this, they say, can lead to even greater accuracy in both veterinary diagnoses and performance evaluations. "It is important that we have methods to objectively quantify and record limb motion since we are now, more and more, aware of the limitations of the human eye as an instrument to detect motion asymmetries, especially at high speeds," said Filipe Serra Bragança, DVM, a PhD candidate in equine musculoskeletal biology at Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Department of Equine Sciences, in The Netherlands.