Stabilization of Non-Surgical Polytrauma in Animal Limbs

Abstract

[EN] This project aims to identify and solve, or at least alleviate, certain problems associated with limb injuries in the veterinary area, where circumstances that are common in the medical sector have simple solutions, but in animals represent long, painful processes and in a very large number of cases death, events that are easily solvable but which, due to a lack of resources or suitable devices, it is not possible to implement a timely solution. There are many injuries to which pets or livestock can be victims, many of which can be complicated or difficult to solve and require complex interventions and treatments, but limb injuries are not always so. However, and especially in pets that are not dogs or cats and in livestock, they almost certainly represent, as we have already said, a condemnation to suffer a painful process of recovery without assistance or at least not the ideal one and in a great number of cases death. Most of the existing devices on the market have been developed from systems previously used in medicine, but there is no specific research with affordable results on the market, both in terms of availability and price. There are many variables that make the usual splints and stabilization systems not sufficiently useful in veterinary medicine, the two most important of which are: (1) The diversity of dimensions. Between a 5 percentile and a 95 percentile in humans the dimensional difference is relatively small (5 percentile 1.53m 47kg - 95 percentile 1.96m 102kg) only in dogs the dimensional difference is much bigger (5 percentile 0.18m 0.3kg - 95 percentile 0.8m 105kg) if we consider that stabilization systems have to be used even in different species, this is a big problem. (2) Economy of scale: it is less common to treat animals than people, so veterinary systems are very costly in proportion, also considering the intrinsic value placed on human and animal life. Based on this, we have decided to delve deeper into the problem and define, based on the results of the research, consequent lines of research for the development of devices that can address the problem.