GOALS:Â
The purpose of the vest and sleeve brace system is to exercise the weak legs against resistance while acting as a soft support. After your pet wears it and walks against the eccentric and concentric muscle movements, they will initially feel more tired. This is because their muscles are still in the learning phase of neuromuscular reeducation: movement overrides pain, spinal learning and restoring natural movement in the brain.
Osteoarthritis needs gentle weight bearing exercise to keep blood flow and nutrients moving in and out of joints. Reference: Sattler L, Kan A, Hing W, Vertullo C. "The addition of structured lifestyle modifications to a traditional exercise program for the management of patients with knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials."
Musculoskelet Sci Pract. 2023 Nov;68:102858. Â
The effects of wearing the brace will do one of three things:
1) Occasional Use After Improvement
Your pet will move with more confidence, ease and be able to walk longer without the brace, resulting in occasional use (such as just on walks or at the dog park): this is the goal.
2) Daily or Full-Time Brace Support
The brace will act as a daily support maintaining or steadily improving your dogâs ability to walk. The brace can be worn initally for four hours at a time during the day or 2-4 hours at a time. It is recommended to allow the dog to rest without the brace overnight. The dog will need to permanently wear the brace daily for maintenance and the dog is very elderly or very weak. This is a home physiotherapy tool, and should be treated as such.
3) Advanced Support and Care Required
The dog is past the point where bracing and home physiotherapy alone will help. In which case your non-surgical options are to wear the brace with a wheelchair, engage in more intense Vet PT care, or move towards more Veterinary drugs and surgery intervention. In other words your dog needs more help and our brace will act as a piece to the puzzle, because it is too late for it to work alone.
If Advanced Support and Care are Required
If your dog is past the point where re-conditioning alone will help. In this case your non-surgical options are to wear the brace with a wheelchair, engage in more intense VPT care, or move towards more veterinary drugs and surgery intervention. Post surgery, our brace is the only muscle maintaining or building, self propelled device on the market today. Stairs will be managable again, but first we have get it fitted correctly! Still not sure? Text us video and pictures of your dog. We can help!
Watch Dr Bianca Shaw DVM, Rehabilitation Veterinarian for 35 years, talk with Dr. Pierce DCfCBP the inventor of the LuckyandLoyal.com Bracing System... about uses and benefits.
