Hello and welcome to this Small Animal Clinical podcast brought to you from the Royal Veterinary College in London.

My name is Shailen Gisani.

Today it's my great pleasure to welcome Holly Smith.

Holly is one of our most experienced and senior veterinary nurses in the Queen Mother Hospital for animals.

She has a diploma in advanced veterinary nursing surgical, a level 3 certificate in hydotherapy,

and is the head nurse for neurology and rehabilitation in the hospital.

Holly has spent much of her career taking care of neurological and orthopaedic patients and was instrumental in

establishing the hydrotherapy service offered by the hospital.

So today's podcast is going to be a general introduction to rehabilitation,

physiotherapy and hydrotherapy.

And I frankly can't think of anyone better place to discuss this with.

So thank you so much, Holly, for joining me today.

So, Holly, look, it's my impression that not just here at the QMH, but also kind of in the wider veterinary community, there is a growing recognition of the potential

benefits of physical rehabilitation, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, and that these are basically

kind of growing disciplines. I think when we first met like a decade ago in this hospital,

there was a lot less of that going on. Do you think that the wider veterinary community is kind of engaging more with these disciplines?

And are there still people that believe in the merits and people that kind of poo-poo the merits of it?

Definitely. As you say, many moons ago, it was non-existent. There was no commercial

hydrotherapy pools around. It was more people that have them in their back garden because they

read about the benefits, couldn't find anywhere to swim their dog that was safe. So set up something

themselves and gained experience that way. Physiotherapy wasn't something

that you really did for say a cruciate rupture or something. The dog would just get the

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