Neurological recovery is difficult for patients, but it can be hard for caregivers as well. Neurology can be intimidating to learn about or understand, especially if it is concerning a loved one. Recoveries can be fast for some patients and torturously slow for others. Veterinary neurological patients can sometimes take many months to get better depending on their individual diagnosis and prognosis. The uncertainty of how much recovery will take place and how long it will take to get there is also a difficult reality for everyone involved. It takes a team approach to care for animals recovering from a neurologic insult and we want you to understand as much as possible so that you can also be part of that team. We are here to help and we do our best to clearly communicate your pet’s prognosis based on history and scientific evidence. In the below blog post we will address several topics that people commonly have questions about. If your pet is a Resurge patient and you have questions about them please contact our office anytime and we will be happy to help. 

Topics covered in this post:

• Bladder expression
• Medications
• Incision care
• Exercise restrictions
• Physical rehabilitation and recheck appointments
• Wheelchairs and Assisted Devices

Bladder expression
Following neurologic injury or surgery some patients may need their urinary bladder manually expressed. The nerves that allow normal urination may be inflamed or damaged, leading to the patient to be unable to urinate on their own. Urinary bladders can become overfilled, distended, and if left un-expressed can have irreversible effects on the patient’s ability to urinate on their own. Neurologic patients can also be prone to bladder infections. These can be uncomfortable and can sometimes lead to setbacks in recovery. 
Bladder expression is not an easy task to master. Give yourself some time to learn how to do it and please contact your veterinarian if you are having problems. 

Wheelchairs
When recoveries are longer than we’d like and/or we have not made much functional recovery in a timely manner, then patients sometimes need assisted devices or products to help them with daily living. Dog wheelchairs can help improve quality of life and allow the patient to feel more independent. It can also assist in building strength in both the front and back legs if properly used and adjusted. However they do not replace the animals limbs. 


​Written by Robert Porter CCRP

    Many of our pet parents come in for their complementary 2 week recheck/ rehabilitation evaluation and are filled with anxiety about their dog being afraid of water. They are apprehensive that their dog will not take to the underwater treadmill due to fear of water or negative past experiences with water. This is a real fear and we do our best ease both the human and animal minds before we do any therapy. Some dogs don't like baths and may have had a negative experience with swimming in a pool or body of water. If this is the case, please let our therapists know so that we can help cater their training and reduce overall stress during this visit. We want them to leave feeling good, not scared.


Are Underwater Treadmills the same as swimming in a pool?


    The short answer is no. Underwater treadmills are very different than baths, pools, or bodies of water, and walking in water is very different than swimming. Understanding these differences help us train underwater treadmill exercise and not go down the the same path as their previous “bad” experiences. One of the main differences is that the water is pumped into the treadmill tank once the patient is walked into it verses the dog being put into a body of water. This is generally not very scary and since most patients don't have any other experience like it, they do very well and don't really know that they should be scared. Swimming is also scary to dogs because they can’t touch the ground. This creates a panic and they likely feel threatened, which creates a fight or flight reaction in self preservation mode. That is definitely not want we want our patients to feel, so their feet are always firmly planted on the ground during the entirety of the underwater treadmill experience. ​

What should I expect during my first rehabilitation visit?


    At your first visit, one of our therapists will bring you and your dog into one of the therapy rooms and discuss how your dog has been doing at home since surgical discharge. This is generally done at 1 to 2 weeks post operatively. This visit gives you a chance to voice any concerns or problems you may have and it give us the opportunity to see how your dog is doing and take those concerns into consideration. If your dog is food motivated, then our therapist may try and play some basic games that allow us to evaluate them better from a functional standpoint. Some dogs that are generally food motivated may be nervous and may not eat during this session. That’s ok, they have a right to be nervous and forcing the issue doesn’t usually help, so we avoid any forced activities. In other words, you can’t force a dog to not be nervous, so we adapt and overcome. They need a good, positive experiences to learn that they are safe. If ongoing therapy is needed, most learn that rehab can be fun and rewarding over time. 
    Once concerns, questions, and the initial evaluation is done, we then have their sutures or staples removed and train them to walk in the underwater treadmill. This generally only takes 1 minute because all we really need our patients to do the first visit is to walk forward. If we keep that first session nice and short, patients tend to leave without feeling trapped in the treadmill and if ongoing therapy is needed, it is very easy to extend times and increase speeds to meet the patient’s needs. If we ask for too much of them too fast, then we can ruin the therapy training session and ongoing therapy will become increasingly more difficult. All of our therapists train our patients the same way with little changes to fit individual personalities. About 90-95% of our patients do very well at that first session and easily walk forward toward the door they where they were led in. If they do not quite get it at first, that’s alright, and most do understand by the second time. Our therapists have trained thousands of dogs to walk in underwater treadmills, on land treadmills and have also trained many other exercises over the years. This doesn’t mean they know everything, but it does give them a lot of insight and understanding on dog behaviors, especially in the clinical rehabilitation setting. 


    If you have any questions about your first visit, please let us know and we will always do our best to explain everything we can to ensure comfortability and confidence with rehabilitation moving forward.

                                                                                                                                                    By Robert Porter CCRP

Some hospitals do rounds for patients, but here at Resurge, we do rounds a little differently. We do what we call Patient Parades. We started out with our very first episode of Patient Parades showing Dr. Dena Lodato rounding with her surgery patients to evaluate their post-surgical conditions. She meticulously checks each patient’s incision, appearance, pain levels, lung and heart sounds, as well as their spirit. Surgery can be stressful and scary for patients, owners, and veterinary staff. We make every attempt to keep the atmosphere upbeat, fun, and as stress-free as possible. Keeping our patients happy and comfortable is a top priority, especially as they are away from home and their loved ones. During episode two, we show our comedic side and how we keep things lively and light. Episode three shows how body language and subconscious cues affects dogs, who are extremely keen in picking up on stress, anxiety, or distress from owners and staff alike. We try to keep this in mind during our day-to-day interactions and cultivate a fun and healthy environment for patients and employees. A happy staff makes for happy patients and happy clients. In episode four we focus on laughter and smiles. Laughing helps to lessen anxiety in stressful situations and smiles are most definitely contagious. We spread laughter and cheer all day every day to everyone who comes into our hospital. Keeping each other laughing is one of the ways that we show our love and care. 

Getting to share these moments with our clients through episodes of patient parades is just one opportunity we just can’t pass up. We all truly enjoy making others smile and sharing the joy of helping our patients. We want people to see that we love what we do, we get attached to our patients, and we are definitely attached to each other. We want others to enjoy seeing a small glimpse of what we enjoy so much. Life at a veterinary hospital is incredibly hard. It’s filled with late nights, weekends, emergencies, unforeseen problems, and sometimes tears. One of our gifts is the gift of creativity. Getting creative to help patients and coworkers is one way that we overcome the challenges of Veterinary Medicine. When stress stacks up, it can be easy to fall into a negative mindset. But negative mindsets do not perpetuate positive outcomes. So, we give our all to stay positive, motivated, happy, and silly. We let our unique and quirky personalities show to keep the environment upbeat and fun. We are very serious about the level of care we give to our patients, our communication with clients, and providing surgical solutions and rehabilitation to our veterinary community. During difficult times, it’s important to laugh, and Dr. Dena Lodato knows how to do just that. She is by far one of the most humble surgeons we have met. Her empathy and compassion are unmatched, and she inspires our staff to aim for nothing short of success. As episode five shows, our staff is never scared to talk with Dr. Dena or approach her with a problem. She always gives 100% to every situation in which she is needed. We hope through our series of Patient Parades that our love of animals and laughter lead to successful recoveries and happy, healthy patients.

​Written by Brittany Murphy and Robert Porter

Robert Porter, CCRP has been teaching his canine conditioning program all over the world, for close to ten years. The same positive approach to therapeutic exercise seen in his workshops is incorporated into post-operative recovery regimens at Resurge Veterinary Surgical Specialists and Rehabilitation. Each rehab plan is custom curated to every individual patient’s ability, needs, and goals. Robby's exercise and training system serves surgical patients just as well as agility, working, and sporting canines to provide an enriching approach to exercise, strengthening, conditioning, and recovery. In this video, Robby’s students can be seen utilizing his positivity-packed methods of canine conditioning and fitness to bring a sense of joy and fulfillment to both dogs and owners alike.

#resurgerehab #canineconditioning #caninerehab #positivereinforment #lowstresshandling #makeexercisefun #itspossible ​

It’s difficult to imagine loosing your ability to move, to walk, to drink, to eat or go to the bathroom by yourself. I can only guess what an emotionally frustrating roller coaster of not knowing why, when or if you may get control of your body back could feel like. Louie suddenly lost everything. He didn’t know why, when or if he was going to get better. On top of having a life changing spinal cord injury, Louie is also an insulin dependent diabetic. None of this stopped Louie. He never came into therapy and felt sorry for himself. He never refused a challenge and he never gave up. He looked past fear, past failure, embraced the process and knew exactly what he wanted… chicken:)
I hope Louie can be an inspiration for dog parents and veterinary professionals to push through the challenging moments and stay focused on creating New Movement, a New Life and a New Beginning for their loved ones and patients. 

#ANNPE #typeIIIdisc #veterinaryrehab #louiethegreat #newmovement #newlife #newbeginning #spinalcordinjury #nevergiveup #cantslowdown #runbeforeyoucanwalk #veterinaryrehab #underwatertreadmill #LASERtherapy #inspiration 

Max came in 2 weeks ago unable to sit up or do anything by himself. He was in a lot of pain and instead of moving his head to look around his world, he could only move his eyes. Dr. Dena Lodato MS, DVM, ACVS, CCRP took him to surgery and removed the compressive herniated disc that was pushing on his spinal cord. He was then put into our rehab program where he learned new movement, started a new life and is now ready for a new beginning. Thank you for never giving up, Max. We can’t wait to see you improve even more. ​

Gobbles was born with a rare condition called cerebellar hypoplasia. Basically, the part of his brain that helps regulate movement and impulse never developed correctly. Gobbles has been coming to therapy for the last month and has made some good progress so far. There was a time when he couldn’t walk well and would even just drag himself around. We all just love Gobbles. He always gets everyone dancing and sharing the purple green and gold love. He truly brings the spirit of carnival everywhere he goes. Thank you for brightening everyone’s day Gobbles. You’re the best! ​