| 1. |
- Egenvall, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Lungeing on hard and soft surfaces: Movement symmetry of trotting horses considered sound by their owners
- 2016
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Ingår i: Equine Veterinary Journal. - : Wiley. - 0425-1644 .- 2042-3306. ; 48, s. 83-89
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reasons for performing studyLungeing is often part of the clinical lameness examination. The difference in movement symmetry, which is a commonly employed lameness measure, has not been quantified between surfaces.ObjectivesTo compare head and pelvic movement symmetry between surfaces and reins during lungeing.Study designQuantitative gait analysis in 23 horses considered sound by their owners.MethodsTwenty-three horses were assessed in-hand and on the lunge on both reins on hard and soft surfaces with inertial sensors. Seven movement symmetry parameters were quantified and used to establish 2 groups, namely symmetrical (n = 9) and forelimb-lame horses (n = 14), based on values from straight-line assessment. Movement symmetry values for left rein measurements were side corrected to allow comparison of the amount of movement symmetry between reins. A mixed model (P<0.05) was used to study effects on movement symmetry of surface (hard/soft) and rein (inside/outside with respect to movement symmetry on the straight).ResultsIn forelimb-lame horses, surface and rein were identified as significantly affecting all head movement symmetry measures (rein, all P<0.0001; surface, all P<0.042). In the symmetrical group, no significant influence of surface or rein was identified for head movement symmetry (rein, all P>0.245; surface, all P>0.073). No significant influence of surface or rein was identified for any of the pelvic movement symmetry measures in either group.ConclusionsWhile more symmetrical horses showed a consistent amount of movement symmetry across surfaces/reins, horses objectively quantified as lame on the straight showed decreased movement symmetry during lungeing, in particular with the lame limb on the inside of a hard circle. The variation within group questions straight-line movement symmetry as a sole measure of lameness without quantification of movement symmetry on the lunge, ideally on hard and soft surfaces to evaluate differences between reins and surfaces. In future, thresholds for lungeing need to be determined using simultaneous visual and objective assessment.
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| 2. |
- Egenvall, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Rein Tension During Transitions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Equine Veterinary Journal. - : Wiley. - 0425-1644 .- 2042-3306. ; 48, s. 26-26
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 3. |
- Hammarberg, Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Rater agreement of visual lameness assessment in horses during lungeing
- 2016
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Ingår i: Equine Veterinary Journal. - : Wiley. - 0425-1644 .- 2042-3306. ; 48, s. 78-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reasons for performing study Lungeing is an important part of lameness examinations as the circular path may accentuate low-grade lameness. Movement asymmetries related to the circular path, to compensatory movements and to pain make the lameness evaluation complex. Scientific studies have shown high inter-rater variation when assessing lameness during straight line movement. Objectives The aim was to estimate inter- and intra-rater agreement of equine veterinarians evaluating lameness from videos of sound and lame horses during lungeing and to investigate the influence of veterinarians' experience and the objective degree of movement asymmetry on rater agreement. Study design Cross-sectional observational study. Methods Video recordings and quantitative gait analysis with inertial sensors were performed in 23 riding horses of various breeds. The horses were examined at trot on a straight line and during lungeing on soft or hard surfaces in both directions. One video sequence was recorded per condition and the horses were classified as forelimb lame, hindlimb lame or sound from objective straight line symmetry measurements. Equine veterinarians (n = 86), including 43 with >5 years of orthopaedic experience, participated in a web-based survey and were asked to identify the lamest limb on 60 videos, including 10 repeats. The agreements between (inter-rater) and within (intra-rater) veterinarians were analysed with statistics (Fleiss, Cohen). Results Inter-rater agreement was 0.31 (0.38/0.25 for experienced/less experienced) and higher for forelimb (0.33) than for hindlimb lameness (0.11) or soundness (0.08) evaluation. Median intra-rater agreement was 0.57. Conclusions Inter-rater agreement was poor for less experienced raters, and for all raters when evaluating hindlimb lameness. Since identification of the lame limb/limbs is a prerequisite for successful diagnosis, treatment and recovery, the high inter-rater variation when evaluating lameness on the lunge is likely to influence the accuracy and repeatability of lameness examinations and, indirectly, the efficacy of treatment.
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| 4. |
- Persson-Sjödin, Emma, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of meloxicam treatment on movement asymmetry in riding horses in training
- 2019
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 14:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Quantitative gait analysis has revealed that a large proportion of horses in training, perceived as free from lameness by their owners, show movement asymmetries of equal magnitude to horses with mild clinical lameness. Whether these movement asymmetries are related to orthopaedic pain and/or pathology has yet to be further investigated. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine whether movement asymmetries in riding horses in training are affected by anti-inflammatory treatment with meloxicam. In a crossover design, horses were treated with meloxicam or placebo for four days respectively, with a 14-16 day washout period between treatments. Objective movement analysis utilising body mounted accelerometers was performed on a hard and a soft surface before and on day four of each treatment. A trial mean was calculated for the differences between the two vertical displacement minima and maxima of head (HDmin, HDmax) and pelvis (PDmin, PDmax) per stride. Horses (n = 66) with trial mean asymmetries greater than 6 mm for HDmin or HDmax, or more than 3 mm for PDmin or PDmax, at baseline were included. The difference before and after each treatment in the measured movement asymmetry was assessed with linear mixed models. Treatment with meloxicam did not significantly affect the movement asymmetry in any of the models applied (all p>0.30). These results raise new questions: are the movement asymmetries in riding horses in training simply expressions of biological variation or are they related to pain/dysfunction that is non-responsive to meloxicam treatment?
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Haubro Andersen, Pia, et al.
(författare)
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Towards Machine Recognition of Facial Expressions of Pain in Horses
- 2021
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Ingår i: Animals. - : MDPI. - 2076-2615. ; 11:6
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Simple Summary Facial activity can convey valid information about the experience of pain in a horse. However, scoring of pain in horses based on facial activity is still in its infancy and accurate scoring can only be performed by trained assessors. Pain in humans can now be recognized reliably from video footage of faces, using computer vision and machine learning. We examine the hurdles in applying these technologies to horses and suggest two general approaches to automatic horse pain recognition. The first approach involves automatically detecting objectively defined facial expression aspects that do not involve any human judgment of what the expression "means". Automated classification of pain expressions can then be done according to a rule-based system since the facial expression aspects are defined with this information in mind. The other involves training very flexible machine learning methods with raw videos of horses with known true pain status. The upside of this approach is that the system has access to all the information in the video without engineered intermediate methods that have filtered out most of the variation. However, a large challenge is that large datasets with reliable pain annotation are required. We have obtained promising results from both approaches. Automated recognition of human facial expressions of pain and emotions is to a certain degree a solved problem, using approaches based on computer vision and machine learning. However, the application of such methods to horses has proven difficult. Major barriers are the lack of sufficiently large, annotated databases for horses and difficulties in obtaining correct classifications of pain because horses are non-verbal. This review describes our work to overcome these barriers, using two different approaches. One involves the use of a manual, but relatively objective, classification system for facial activity (Facial Action Coding System), where data are analyzed for pain expressions after coding using machine learning principles. We have devised tools that can aid manual labeling by identifying the faces and facial keypoints of horses. This approach provides promising results in the automated recognition of facial action units from images. The second approach, recurrent neural network end-to-end learning, requires less extraction of features and representations from the video but instead depends on large volumes of video data with ground truth. Our preliminary results suggest clearly that dynamics are important for pain recognition and show that combinations of recurrent neural networks can classify experimental pain in a small number of horses better than human raters.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Byström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Differences in rider movement pattern between different degrees of collection at the trot in high-level dressage horses ridden on a treadmill
- 2015
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Ingår i: Human Movement Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-9457 .- 1872-7646. ; 41, s. 1-8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Collection is a central term in equine dressage, defined as a shortening of the horse's stride length with retained energy and hind limb activity. How collection is induced by the rider has yet not been investigated objectively. The aim of this study was therefore to compare the movement pattern of high-level dressage riders between free trot (loose reins), passage and a range of three speeds in collected trot.Both at higher speed in collected trot and in passage, the rider's pelvis became more caudally rotated and the rider's lumbar back became more flexed. However, in passage there was also a decrease in phase-shift between horse and rider movements, suggesting that the rider used the seat more actively. In free trot, the rider's pelvis was more cranially rotated, the lumbar back was more extended, the rider's body inclined more forwards, and the phase-shift between horse and rider was increased, compared to collected trot. The observed changes were partly explainable from changes in the horse's movement pattern. However, most differences in rider body position seemed unrelated to the horse's movements, but were in accordance with instructions in equestrian texts, suggesting that those changes were voluntarily adopted by the riders. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
- Egenvall, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Rein tension during canter
- 2015
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Ingår i: Comparative Exercise Physiology. - 1755-2540 .- 1755-2559. ; 11, s. 107-117
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Riders generally use reins as a means for communication with the horse. At present, the signalling pattern is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to illustrate and analyse the rein tension patterns in a number of rider/horse combinations across a variety of exercises in the canter gait. Our hypothesis was that some riders will follow the movement of the horse more closely than others. Data were collected from eight professional riders riding each three (in one case two) horses that were familiar to them in canter. Horses were instrumented with rein tension meters logged by inertial measurement unit technique (IMU). Inside and outside rein tension data were synchronised with the gait using the vertical acceleration IMU-signal at the poll. Stride-split data (0-100 percentages) were analysed using mixed models technique to elucidate the inside/outside and stride percentage interaction, taking into account the exercises performed. In general, tension was maximal just before the beginning of vertical stance, as defined by the maximal acceleration of the head, with the release closer to the suspension phase. The release was significantly more marked on the outside rein, but between riders and horses the pattern varied substantially. In total 26% of the variation was represented by riders and 21% by the horses. On average there were significant inside/outside rein differences, but at the same time in some horse/rider combinations these differences did not exist.
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| 10. |
- Egenvall, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Stride-related rein tension patterns in walk and trot in the ridden horse
- 2015
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Ingår i: Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-605X .- 1751-0147. ; 57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The use of tack (equipment such as saddles and reins) and especially of bits because of rein tension resulting in pressure in the mouth is questioned because of welfare concerns. We hypothesised that rein tension patterns in walk and trot reflect general gait kinematics, but are also determined by individual horse and rider effects. Six professional riders rode three familiar horses in walk and trot. Horses were equipped with rein tension meters logged by inertial measurement unit technique. Left and right rein tension data were synchronized with the gait.Results: Stride split data (0-100 %) were analysed using mixed models technique to elucidate the left/right rein and stride percentage interaction, in relation to the exercises performed. In walk, rein tension was highest at hindlimb stance. Rein tension was highest in the suspension phase at trot, and lowest during the stance phase. In rising trot there was a significant difference between the two midstance phases, but not in sitting trot. When turning in trot there was a significant statistical association with the gait pattern with the tension being highest in the inside rein when the horse was on the outer fore-inner hindlimb diagonal.Conclusions: Substantial between-rider variation was demonstrated in walk and trot and between-horse variation in walk. Biphasic rein tensions patterns during the stride were found mainly in trot.
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