Performing the Small Animal Physical Examination

 

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Basics of Physical Examination by Dr Zahid Afzal

Hi I am Dr Zahid Afzal from General veterinary hospital Lahore; Today I want to discuss a new topic which name is basics of physical examination. A video about this topic is already uploaded on YouTube channel so those who want a visual lecture they can watch that video. So my topic is about that, what are the most important things which we need to observe…?For which we need to make sure before doing any physical examination of any cat and dog and other animals. So there are a few basic things which we need to know before starting a complete checkup of animal. These basic things include but not limited to temperature for fever, respiration rate, pulse rate, skin softness or hardness and oral mucosa. So please make sure that you are keeping in focus these four points.

So let's get to our first point which is temperature, so whenever we will take the temperature it's very important for us that to check the fever of that animal, which came to our clinic for an examination. If the temperature is higher than we call that animal is hyperthermia, and when the temperature is lower than the normal range then we call it hypothermic. So after taking the exact temperature we can decide the exact treatment plan for that animal, and if we ignore this point then maybe are treatment plan will not work on that animal for that specific disease. So basically when there is hyperthermia, then you will use non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the temperature and if the temperature is too much high that for example in dogs if it is more than 105 Fahrenheit, then you need to firstly lower down the temperature to 103 or 104 to make sure that you are injections will not react on that animal. So similarly if the animal is hypothermic then you will use the multivitamins to boost up the body temperature, and advise the owner that after going into the home they make sure to cover up the animal, so that animal body could get warmer environment and that will make his body temperature to normalized condition.

Now come to the next point which is respiration rate, so respiration rate is the speed of respiration and by this we can assess, we can analyze that which type of treatment plan will work on that specific animal. In a normal average, whenever the patient is hyperthermia the respiration rate is automatically increased, and whenever the temperature is low or the animal is hypothermic then the respiration rate will be low. So the next step is pulse rate similar is the case with pulse rate, this pulse rate is also associated with the hyperthermia and hypothermic condition.

Now the next and the most important part of physical examination is to check any type of skin hardness and skin softness. If the skin is hard and it stays more than 15 seconds when you punch it then this means that animal is dehydrated, for which you must add any hydrant to the treatment plan, so animal get hydrated. In my opinion fluid therapy is not the only option to make animal hydrated, and if the skin is soft and come to its original position after punching within 2 seconds, then this means that animal is fully hydrated and we don't need to tackle up his hydration procedure.

Now the next step is that we have to check, whether the animal is anemic or non anemic, for this we will check the eye mucosa and the oral mucosa, if the color is white then this means that animal is anemic. And if the color is pink or red then its mean that animal have normal blood level. So we can suggest the treatment along with the other disease condition to make sure that animal remains healthy.

 Now the next step is that in any case we have to check the animal walking if animal is walking normally, then this means that animal is normal and if he is pulling up his legs or making some pressure on paws, then this mean that this animal must have a pain or something like muscular pain in legs.

 Now the last but not the least parameter of physical examination is to palpate animal’s abdomen by this you can easily analyze or can say that the animal is having any type of stomach pain or not, or either you can also check that animal is constipated or not. Checking all these parameters now we can make an exact treatment plan depending on the history provided by the owner, and depending on the conditions we have seen by the physical examination, and diagnose we have made and the diagnose which came in our mind at first instance, that this animal require specified either antibiotics or other  symptomatic drugs.

I hope this topic and this article will enhance your knowledge about the basics of physical examination, and you can evaluate as per as your experience. And if there is any question related to this article you can WhatsApp me, and you can also comment in the below section and you can also join my multiple online platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and you can contact me anytime anywhere online. I will be there for you thanks for visiting my website keep me updated with your precious comments and reviews. There are also few people who are basically my colleagues are not interested in my articles and videos so there is  request to them if my articles are not up to the mark or up to your satisfaction than there is no obligation on you to watch my videos and read my articles. You can also write them if you want to and you can also make videos of your own. There is no objection on you from any side. Here I also wanted to invite all the Vets to write articles for this blog so we can publish them for other vets.