Equine Complex Vertebral Malformation (ECVM) is a congenital syndrome in domestic horses whose prevalence has been increasingly recognized in many horse breeds over the past 20 years.  It is likely the underlying cause of most C5-C7 facet arthritis in horses, as well as many other neuro-musculo-skeletal problems, severe undiagnosable pain, behavior issues and training difficulties.  It’s likely most equine vets have been seeing cases for years, but did not appreciate the underlying malformations that cause lower cervical pathology because until recently, it was only diagnosed post-mortem, and most necropsies do not go sufficiently deep to find the anomalies on the axial spine itself.

Learning objectives:

1) What is ECVM?  

2) What is its clinical significance?  

3) How can you diagnose and treat it?  

4) How can you prevent it?

Qualifications and/or Experience

Dr. Karen Gellman is a graduate of Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, and has a doctorate from Cornell in animal locomotion biomechanics. She has advanced training and certification in veterinary acupuncture and veterinary chiropractic, and has practiced these and other modalities since 1995.  She is the educational director and teaches in the Postural Rehabilitation training course for veterinarians, and taught biomedical research programs at Cornell Summer College for twenty years.  She is a featured speaker on holistic veterinary modalities, posture, and locomotion biomechanics at veterinary meetings in North America and Europe.  She is Research Director of Maximum Horsepower Research, and principle investigator of a study on equine posture funded by the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Foundation.