For Immediate Release
For more information contact:
Equinosis, LLC
James S. Ruder
413-427-2323
jruder@equinosis.com
www.equinosis.com
EQUINOSIS™ ANNOUNCES FORMAL LAUNCH OF
LAMENESS LOCATOR®
AN OBJECTIVE LAMENESS DIAGNOSTIC TECHNOLOGY
St. Louis, MO – For those who have been horse owners for any length of time, lameness
related issues are one of the biggest challenges preventing us from using and enjoying
our horses to their fullest. Recent advances in motion sensor technology and its
application to equine lameness will revolutionize the approach to equine lameness in
the future.
Kevin Keegan, a professor of equine surgery in the College of Veterinary Medicine at
the University Missouri, has been tracking horse movement related to equine lameness
for years. Because equine lameness may begin subtly and can range from a simple
mild problem affecting a single limb to a more complicated one affecting multiple limbs,
veterinarians and horse owners know that early detection is the key to successful
outcomes. The problem, Keegan says, is that detection still relies on simple visual
observation with the naked eye.
Keegan goes on to say; “We’ve been developing objective methods of lameness
detection and evaluation since the early 1990s as an aid to subjective evaluations. We
started with treadmills and high speed cameras, and those worked pretty well, but they
weren’t really practical due to high cost and they cannot be used in the field. Plus,
horses do not move on a treadmill like they do on regular ground. In some cases with
mild lameness, or in cases with multiple limb lameness, even experts looking at the
same horse may disagree on whether lameness is present or on its severity. An
objective method would be helpful to take some guesswork out of the evaluation.”
Working with Frank Pai, a professor in mechanical engineering at MU, and Yoshiharu
Yonezawa at the Hiroshima Institute of Technology in Japan, the team developed an
inertial sensor system, now in commercial use and called Lameness Locator®; which
places small sensors on the horse’s head, right front limb and croup, near the tail. The
sensors monitor and record the horse’s torso movement while the horse is trotting. The
recorded information is compared against data bases recorded from the movement of
healthy horses and other lame horses. These comparisons can help equine
veterinarians improve and streamline their evaluation in a way they’ve never been able
to do before.
“There are two reasons why the Lameness Locator® is better than the naked eye,”
Keegan said. “It samples motion at a higher frequency (200x) beyond the capability of
the human eye (10x to 20x) and it removes the bias that frequently accompanies
subjective evaluation.”
The product has drawn attention from outside the veterinary world; the National Science
Foundation (NSF) has awarded a two-year Small Business Technology Transfer
(STTR) Phase II Grant of $500,000 for further research and development of the current
technology. The grant was awarded to Equinosis, LLC, a faculty start-up with license
from the University of Missouri to develop and commercialize the product, after
successful completion of a Phase I study which was instrumental in developing the
prototype.
James S. Ruder, whom recently joined EquinosisTM as Chief Executive Officer; says he
was drawn to Equinosis because; “the Lameness Locator ® will provide the veterinary
community the objective quantifiable diagnostic technology it has never had before. It
will provide support of diagnosis in obvious cases and will provide detailed objectivity to
multiple limb and or compensatory lameness when the lameness is not so obvious.”
ABOUT EQUINOSIS
Founded in 2007, Equinosis’TM mission is to assist and equip the equine practitioner by
developing and providing wireless sensor solutions for collection of biological data
useful in the diagnosis of equine disease. EquinosisTM technology is only available to
licensed veterinarians. For more information on Lameness Locator® by EquinosisTM,
please visit www.equinosis.com.
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