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Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment

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A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Equids".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 15477

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrea Bertuglia

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Guest Editor

Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
Interests: equine sports medicine; horse locomotion; gait analysis, inertial sensors; electromyography; wearable sensors; welfare in racehorses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Sybille Molle

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Guest Editor

Private Practice, Novara, Italy
Interests: equine sports medicine; innovation in equine rehabilitation; equine kinesiology taping; posture and function; welfare in sport-horses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

I am honored to invite you to submit results of your research in this special issue of Animals focused on the integration of new wearable technologies, as a clinical aid in equine sports medicine practice.

Games are rapidly changing in the field of equine sports medicine, injury prevention and rehabilitation. Public awareness concerning equine welfare has increased. New wearable sensors to assess locomotion and function, remote controls of equine performance and “on-board” diagnostic devices are currently available for integration in everyday practice. In an ongoing quest to find ways to answer the most challenging questions related to the sports medicine and equine welfare, technology is capable of providing us with new insights, essential to our management and veterinary care of equine athletes. The scientific community has the key role to validate those novel technologies to provide appropriate care to equine athletes with the aim of reducing sport-related injuries.

The goal of this Special Issue is to publish original research papers and reviews focused on the employment of new tools in the field of sports medicine, injury prevention, objective definition of function, and rehabilitation. This Special Issue welcomes all experts and researchers that would like to present information in a clear, understandable, and logical format on the current “state-of-the-art” of equine sports medicine. Articles highlighting how digital technologies can be integrated in everyday practice are particularly appreciated.

We invite you to share your recent findings through this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Andrea Bertuglia
Dr. Sybille Molle
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Wearable sensors
Computer Modelling
Electromyography
Gait Analysis
Racehorses
Sports-horses
Exercise-Related Injury Prevention
Objective assessment of rehabilitation

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 4588 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Preliminary Study on the Use of HD-sEMG for the Functional Imaging of Equine Superficial Muscle Activation during Dynamic Mobilization Exercises

by Fiorenza Gamucci, Marcello Pallante, Sybille Molle, Enrico Merlo and Andrea Bertuglia

Animals 2022, 12(6), 785; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12060785 - 20 Mar 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2738

Abstract

Superficial skeletal muscle activation is associated with an electric activity. Bidimensional High-Density Surface Electromyography (HD-sEMG) is a non-invasive technique that uses a grid of equally spaced electrodes applied on the skin surface to detect and portray superficial skeletal muscle activation. The goal of the study was to evaluate the feasibility of HD-sEMG to detect electrical activation of skeletal muscle and its application during rehabilitation exercises in horses. To fulfil this aim, activation of the superficial descending pectoral and external abdominal oblique core muscles were measured using HD-sEMG technology during dynamic mobilization exercises to induce lateral bending and flexion/extension tasks of the trunk. Masseter muscle was instrumented during mastication as a control condition. A 64 surface EMG channel wireless system was used with a single 64 electrode grid or a pair of 32 electrode grids. HD-sEMG provided unique information on the muscular activation onset, duration, and offset, along each motor task, and permitting inferences about the motor control strategy actuated by the central nervous system. Signals were further processed to obtain firing frequencies of few motor-neurons. Estimation of electromyographic amplitude and spectral parameters allowed detecting the onset of muscular fatigue during the motor tasks performed. HD-sEMG allows the assessment of muscular activation in horses performing specific motor tasks, supporting its future application in clinical and research settings. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment)

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20 pages, 2118 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Linear Discriminant Analysis for Investigating Differences in Upper Body Movement Symmetry in Horses before/after Diagnostic Analgesia in Relation to Expert Judgement

by Thilo Pfau, David M. Bolt, Andrew Fiske-Jackson, Carolin Gerdes, Karl Hoenecke, Lucy Lynch, Melanie Perrier and Roger K. W. Smith

Animals 2022, 12(6), 762; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12060762 - 17 Mar 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2271

Abstract

Diagnostic analgesia and lunging are parts of the equine lameness examination, aiding veterinarians in localizing the anatomical region(s) causing pain-related movement deficits. Expectation bias of visual assessment and complex movement asymmetry changes in lame horses on the lunge highlight the need to investigate data-driven approaches for optimally integrating quantitative gait data into veterinary decision-making to remove bias. A retrospective analysis was conducted with inertial sensor movement symmetry data before/after diagnostic analgesia relative to subjective judgement of efficacy of diagnostic analgesia in 53 horses. Horses were trotted on the straight and on the lunge. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) applied to ten movement asymmetry features quantified the accuracy of classifying negative, partial and complete responses to diagnostic analgesia and investigated the influence of movement direction and surface type on the quality of the data-driven separation between diagnostic analgesia categories. The contribution of movement asymmetry features to decision-making was also studied. Leave-one-out classification accuracy varied considerably (38.3–57.4% for forelimb and 36.1–56.1% for hindlimb diagnostic analgesia). The highest inter-category distances (best separation) were found with the blocked limb on the inside of the circle, on hard ground for forelimb diagnostic analgesia and on soft ground for hindlimb diagnostic analgesia. These exercises deserve special attention when consulting quantitative gait data in lame horses. Head and pelvic upward movement and withers minimum differences were the features with the highest weighting within the first canonical LDA function across exercises and forelimb and hindlimb diagnostic analgesia. This highlights that movement changes after diagnostic analgesia affect the whole upper body. Classification accuracies based on quantitative movement asymmetry changes indicate considerable overlap between subjective diagnostic analgesia categories. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment)

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17 pages, 2695 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multibody Computer Model of the Entire Equine Forelimb Simulates Forces Causing Catastrophic Fractures of the Carpus during a Traditional Race

by Eleonora Pagliara, Alvise Pasinato, Alberto Valazza, Barbara Riccio, Federica Cantatore, Mara Terzini, Giovanni Putame, Annapaola Parrilli, Maria Sartori, Milena Fini, Elisabetta M. Zanetti and Andrea Bertuglia

Animals 2022, 12(6), 737; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12060737 - 16 Mar 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2782

Abstract

A catastrophic fracture of the radial carpal bone experienced by a racehorse during a Palio race was analyzed. Computational modelling of the carpal joint at the point of failure informed by live data was generated using a multibody code for dynamics simulation. The circuit design in a turn, the speed of the animal and the surface characteristics were considered in the model. A macroscopic examination of the cartilage, micro-CT and histology were performed on the radio-carpal joint of the limb that sustained the fracture. The model predicted the points of contact forces generated at the level of the radio-carpal joint where the fracture occurred. Articular surfaces of the distal radius, together with the proximal articular surface of small carpal bones, exhibited diffuse wear lines, erosions of the articular cartilage and subchondral bone exposure. Even though the data in this study originated from a single fracture and further work will be required to validate this approach, this study highlights the potential correlation between elevated impact forces generated at the level of contact surfaces of the carpal joint during a turn and cartilage breakdown in the absence of pre-existing pathology. Computer modelling resulted in a useful tool to inversely calculate internal forces generated during specific conditions that cannot be reproduced in-vivo because of ethical concerns. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment)

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24 pages, 5024 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Selection of Image Texture Analysis and Color Model in the Advanced Image Processing of Thermal Images of Horses following Exercise

by Małgorzata Domino, Marta Borowska, Natalia Kozłowska, Anna Trojakowska, Łukasz Zdrojkowski, Tomasz Jasiński, Graham Smyth and Małgorzata Maśko

Animals 2022, 12(4), 444; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12040444 - 12 Feb 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2179

Abstract

As the detection of horse state after exercise is constantly developing, a link between blood biomarkers and infrared thermography (IRT) was investigated using advanced image texture analysis. The aim of the study was to determine which combinations of RGB (red-green-blue), YUI (brightness-UV-components), YIQ (brightness-IQ-components), and HSB (hue-saturation-brightness) color models, components, and texture features are related to the blood biomarkers of exercise effect. Twelve Polish warmblood horses underwent standardized exercise tests for six consecutive days. Both thermal images and blood samples were collected before and after each test. All 144 obtained IRT images were analyzed independently for 12 color components in four color models using eight texture-feature approaches, including 88 features. The similarity between blood biomarker levels and texture features was determined using linear regression models. In the horses’ thoracolumbar region, 12 texture features (nine in RGB, one in YIQ, and two in HSB) were related to blood biomarkers. Variance, sum of squares, and sum of variance in the RGB were highly repeatable between image processing protocols. The combination of two approaches of image texture (histogram statistics and gray-level co-occurrence matrix) and two color models (RGB, YIQ), should be considered in the application of digital image processing of equine IRT. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment)

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Review

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17 pages, 3177 KiB

Open AccessReview

Guidelines for the Measurement of Rein Tension in Equestrian Sport

by Hilary Clayton, Russell MacKechnie-Guire, Anna Byström, Sarah Le Jeune and Agneta Egenvall

Animals 2021, 11(10), 2875; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11102875 - 30 Sep 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4154

Abstract

Rein tension is relatively easy to measure, and the resulting data are useful for evaluating the interaction between horse and rider. To date, there have been a number of studies using different transducers, calibration methods and analytical techniques. The purpose of this paper is to make recommendations regarding the collection, analysis and reporting of rein tension data. The goal is to assist users in selecting appropriate equipment, choosing verified methods of calibration, data collection and analysis, and reporting their results consistently to facilitate comparisons between different studies. Sensors should have a suitable range and resolution together with a fast enough dynamic response, according to the gait, speed and type of riding for which they will be used. An appropriate calibration procedure is necessary before each recording session. A recording frequency of 50 Hz is adequate for most rein tension studies. The data may be analyzed using time-series methods or by extracting and analyzing discrete variables chosen in accordance with the study objectives. Consistent reporting facilitates comparisons between studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Integrating Wearable Technologies in Equine Sports Medicine: Recent Advances for Diagnosis and Treatment)

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