Naughty, or in pain?

Radiculopathy is the compression of a nerve root within the neck, and causes a range of signs. Rachel Tucker MRCVS explains what to watch for, plus existing and new treatments

- Rachel Tucker

NECK pain has often gone unnoticed in horses, with resulting poor performance attributed to a lack of athletic ability or bad behaviour. As our understanding has grown, health professionals, trainers and riders have begun to recognise the importance of neck pathology on equine performance and welfare.

Increasing availability of computed tomography (CT; vet clinic, 18 July 2024) in equine vet practice has led to rapid improvements in our ability to diagnose neck conditions in horses. A multitude of diagnoses are now recognised and one of the more complex causes of neck dysfunction is cervical radiculopathy, a condition characterised by nerve root compression.

RECOGNISING THE SIGNS

NECK pain in horses can manifest in many ways, from overt neck stiffness and an abnormal head carriage to more subtle signs such as difficulty bending, a shortened forelimb stride or reduced scope over jumps. I have observed performance issues in warmblood dressage and jumping horses, cross-country jumping issues in sport horses, and bolting behaviour and neck stiffness in native ponies.

Perceptive owners may seek investigation simply because their horse shows signs of pain when ridden and because neither horse nor rider are enjoying ridden work. The development of the ridden horse pain ethogram (vet clinic, 12 June) has helped increase awareness of visible signs of pain in the horse. Older horses most commonly present due to arthritic changes within the neck, but young warmbloods commonly present with joint disease too, for reasons that are not well understood.

WHAT IS RADICULOPATHY?

RADICULOPATHY describes a range of signs caused by pinching of a nerve root in the vertebral column. Human patients with cervical radiculopathy describe neck pain, tingling and shooting pains in the arm, weakness of the hands and localised loss of skin sensation.