The Iowa Stater
February 2002
SHOCK WAVES MEAN A QUICKER MEND FOR HORSES
A medical technology developed to break up kidney stones in humans is being used as an innovative treatment to repair bones and ligaments in horses at Iowa State's Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Horse owners throughout the Midwest are bringing their horses for shock wave therapy, according to Dr. Scott McClure, one of several equine specialists in the United States using the technology. For certain ligament problems and chronic conditions of the bones and ligaments, conventional therapy has either failed or worked too slowly, McClure said. He has found shock wave treatment to heal those conditions fully and much faster than conventional treatment. Noninvasive pressure pulses (not electricity) pass through soft tissue -- skin and muscle -- to actually remodel the bone, stimulate blood flow or cause cells to divide.
 Dr. Scott McClure uses shock therapy to treat this horse for lameness. Photo by Jim Fosse. |