ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Surgery
This article is part of the Research TopicSports Medicine and Physical Rehabilitation, Volume IVView all 3 articles
Postoperative management following equine orthopedic surgery: a survey of diplomates of the ACVS and ACVSMR
Provisionally accepted
- 1North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States
- 2K. R. Love Quantitative Consulting and Collaboration, Athens, Georgia, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Postoperative management, including rehabilitation and physical therapy, is important to decrease pain and improve return to function in human and small animal orthopedic surgical cases; however, recommendations for postoperative management for equine orthopedic surgical cases is limited. As the field of equine rehabilitation continues to expand, we must understand how postoperative management and rehabilitation modalities are being used to determine evidence based guidelines for commonly utilized modalities. The objectives of this cross-sectional survey were to (1) investigate postoperative management recommendations for four common equine orthopedic surgical scenarios by diplomates of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) and American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation (ACVSMR) and to (2) determine if recommendations were different between specialties and (3) different between surgical scenarios. An electronic cross-sectional survey with four equine orthopedic surgical scenarios (simple arthroscopy [SA], septic arthritis [SJ], deep digital flexor tendon tear [DT], and neurectomy of the deep branch of the lateral plantar nerve and fasciotomy [NF]) with questions regarding postoperative management recommendations was distributed to diplomates of the ACVS and ACVSMR. A total of 85 surveys were completed. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory administration, bandaging, hand-walking, and small paddock turnout, were most recommended for all scenarios. SA, SJ, and NF cases had small paddock turnout, full turnout, and ridden exercise recommended sooner than DT cases. Longer periods of hand-walking and small paddock turnout were recommended for DT cases. Intrathecal therapies were most frequently recommended for DT cases. ACVSMR diplomates were more likely to recommend rehabilitation modalities for certain scenarios. In conclusion, results of this survey describe postoperative management for equine orthopedic surgical cases recommended by ACVS and ACVSMR diplomates. Few differences were identified in recommendations between diplomates. Differences were identified between the different surgical case scenarios.
Keywords: postoperative, Equine, Rehabilitation, Orthopedic, Surgery
Received: 18 Sep 2025; Accepted: 29 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jacobs, Schnabel, Horne, Tufts, Martin and Love. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Carrie Jacobs, ccjacob5@ncsu.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.