Digital thermal imaging

[cansk8@ac.com]

does anyone use a thermal imaging camera in their practice?

Is it worth it?

How much does the camera cost?

[lehughes]

We have one at my clinic that I bought second hand. It's a Flir 40 (I think - sorry, it's not in front of me).
We use it for our Sporting Dog Baseline Assessments.
However, one thing we found is that on doing the Baseline Assessments, the therapist's manual evaluation picked up more and/or made sense of the finding on the Digital Thermal Imaging.
So, to be honest, I don't think it will improve your assessments or therapies, but it is a nice little 'gimmick' and the owners loved it. So, I look at it as a marketing tool.

My 2 cents!

Cheers,

Laurie

[cansk8@ac.com]

Thanks Laurie- Someone just told me they are about 30K!! Too rich for my blood!

[lehughes]

That seem quite a ridiculous price! I bought the one I use at 1/2 price (used). I believe it was originally $5000. Which is more do-able, but still pricey for a piece of equipment that we've not felt added to our assessments much.

Cheers,

Laurie

[David Lane]

Chris Zink uses hers as a portable stance analyzer - have dog stand on a smooth floor for 30 seconds, then walk away quickly and photograph the floor. Admittedly, it is a completely unvalidated technique, but it did demonstrate real asymmetries with less heating of the floor beneath the lame leg.

[lehughes]

Or... use the bathroom scale method. I need to do a video for that!

Laurie