When working in the discipline of equine sports medicine and rehabilitation it is common to need to attempt to differentiate between signs of neurologic and musculoskeletal disease.

In this course Dr. Anna Firshman will introduce students to the equine neurological examination in order to give the rehabilitation practitioner a background knowledge into how this exam is approached by the veterinarian.

Part I will concentrate on how practitioners evaluate the head and cranial nerves during a neurological assessment

Part II will cover the remainder of procedures, including standing and dynamic examination of the patient

The overall aim is for the student to become familiar with signs of neurologic dysfunction and to given a better understanding as to how a veterinary neurologic examination is performed on a horse.

Dr. Anna Firshman is an associate clinical professor of large animal medicine at the University of Minnesota, College of Veterinary Medicine, where she teaches and works in the Large Animal Hospital, seeing internal medicine cases of all large animal species. She received her veterinary degree from Liverpool University, England in 1999 and became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in 2003. She completed a PhD in 2005 involving the study of muscle disease in horses at the University of Minnesota and then joined the faculty at Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She became a charter member of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation in 2010. Dr. Firshman has a special interest in equine exercise physiology, conditioning and rehabilitation therapy and received her certificate in equine rehabilitation from the University of Tennessee. She is particularly interested in the use of rehabilitation techniques in the care of horses affected by neurologic and muscular diseases. Her research interests center around equine neuromuscular disease and the effects of underwater treadmill exercise in horses.