JW Physiotherapy

13/11/2025

11/11/2025

At the weekend I attended the Vet Rehab summit for 12 hours of equine and small animal training.
The theme this year was dynamic by design

Thank you Onlinepethealth

10/11/2025

ℹ️ Did you know that it is documented that up to 40% of postoperative dogs experience chronic pain (Williams Pownall et all, 2021). Chronic pain is pain that continues beyond the healing process and recovery period?

❓Pre operative and post operative physiotherapy is not routine for our animals but why?

❗️It is NOT because physiotherapy isn’t effective, it is.

‼️It is NOT because animals do not need it, they do.

✅ It is probably because veterinary rehabilitation is newer than its human equivalent. It is probably because vets may not know a qualified physiotherapist. There is also less literature supporting animal physiotherapy than there is in human medicine and there is a cost to treatment as there is no pet NHS.

👨‍⚕️Referral to physiotherapy post surgery appears to be dependent on the type of surgery, the result of the surgery, the level of disability the animal has, the surgeons experience working with physiotherapists, the surgeons view on success post surgery.

🐾 Physiotherapy plays a vital role in animal rehabilitation, a role that is generally unappreciated in veterinary medicine. Appropriate physiotherapy can start as soon as the animal is comfortable enough, in many cases within the first week. Early intervention often helps with pain relief and improving circulation, helps with enrichment and mental stimulation during rest periods, helps prevent joint stiffness and muscle atrophy, provides support and education for the owner, and starting movement in the correct way and improving function with normal movement helps prevent compensatory movements and abnormal movement patterns which long term can contribute to lasting pain and dysfunction.

🫵 what can you do? You can request physio referral for your animal. If you’re not sure if it’s appropriate speak to your local qualified veterinary physiotherapist. Feel free to contact me to discuss the suitability for your animal there is obligation to book an appointment.

🤔 what can I do? I can liaise with your vet and discuss the suitability of physiotherapy. I also have offered all veterinary surgeries in my local area a free info session/presentation to discuss how physiotherapy plays an important role in our pets health and fitness.

09/11/2025

A few months ago I was asked if I could only choose 1 mode of physiotherapy treatment what would it be?

Firstly I hope I never have to make this choice. With some animals I do have to miss out parts of an assessment or treatment if the animal is aggressive and cannot be touched. Or certain dynamic exercises with equipment with a blind animal. Or certain electrotherapies with animals with a history of cancer.

Secondly to get the most out of physiotherapy assessment and treatment you really need all the different elements in order to gain as much information about an animals presentation, to inform about what the issues are and then target the different elements that have an impact that the issue upon the body (and mind).

So then to answer the question a physios greatest tool is what we can assess and treat with our hands. I’ve spent all my years as a human physio using my hands and gaining verbal feedback from the patient in what affect it has on them. This is hugely helpful moving into the animal field having this learning history of the effect of my hands on techniques as now I don’t have any verbal feedback (although animals give great body language feedback).

What can I treat/influence/change with my hands? Pretty much everything. And then in order to maintain those changes occurring in the physio session it’s over to you the owner to then perform exercises that have been prescribed!

08/11/2025

November Appointment availability
WC 10 Nov full including urgent appts
WC 17 Nov: Friday 21st 1pm or 2pm and urgents
WC 24 Nov urgents only

04/11/2025

Second night on the run for some Online continuing professional development. Great speaker tonight Matt Gurney of the zero pain philosophy sharing his knowledge and experience on treating and managing myofascial pain.

27/10/2025

🐾We still have some pet remedy stock left to help with firework season. Get in touch if you want any pet remedy products. I can bring to an appt or you can collect. I’ve also left some at Lancashire Canine Hydrotherapy if anyone needs some asap 🐾

07/10/2025

🐩🐩How did I miss it’s national poodle day?? 🐩🐩

06/10/2025

After a busy and stimulating weekend at the ACPAT conference it’s a day of catching up with paperwork, writing reports and feeding back to vets.

The rest of the day is going to be going on a long walk with the dogs to catch up on our mileage for our MND walk. Please donate if you can it is a charity close to my heart and a condition that my family has been directly affected by. I can’t emphasise enough how much we need to make medical advancements with treating or slowing MND.

https://socialsync.app/fundraiser/cr-oz354wmql7jw?fbclid=IwdGRjcANJ3UZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHi9mXpZ23U5hBocOyxuwRLxFrZVu2pTsfLZAMP9juIJG0TBCW5odxNtlXBXl_aem_11FZa1a2lgB8bXJlmR2vUw

05/10/2025

Day 2 of the ACPAT seminar and its small animal day.

04/10/2025

It’s the ACPAT seminar this weekend today is equine day, I have my cup of tea, paper and pad at the ready