Press Release
Date: Thursday 8 September
Immediate Release 

Future of canine arthritis care unveiled today at ESVOT Congress in London

A revolutionary new tool to support vets and pet owners in proactively managing canine arthritis has launched today at the 18^th ESVOT Congress in London.

Designed to provide practices and pet owners with one common system for osteo-arthritis management, the system uses a multi-modal approach, focusing on six key areas of the management of arthritis – A – Analgesia, B – Body Condition Score and diet, C – Care with environmental and drug toxicity issues, D – Disease modifications, E – Exercise, F – Follow up

AIM OA is delivered via a cloud based app, enabling pet owners and vets to work together to build a totally bespoke plan for each individual patient to offer the best possible conditions for ongoing care.

The problem of canine osteo-arthritis is well known – out of the 8.5m dogs in the UK, 1.7m will develop arthritis, however early intervention can reduce pain and increase mobility and ongoing management may increase life expectancy by a number of years.

Aim OA has been developed by two of the world’s leading veterinary clinicians in the canine orthopaedic and rehabilitation disciplines, Professor Stuart Carmichael an RCVS specialist in orthopaedics and a recognised authority on osteoarthritis and David Prydie, one of the world’s leading canine rehabilitation practitioners.

The system is web based and consists of a series of questions for the pet owner that can be completed in the waiting room on an iPad or on a web enabled device, and a series of questions for the vet, based on their clinical examination of the patient.

The system then uses an algorithm to generate suggestions for each of the six areas for management, creating a traffic light system plan highlighting areas for focus which can be printed off and given to the owner along with the recommended exercises.

AIM OA has been trialled and rolled out to a number of practices. Funding to support knowledge development around Aim OA within the veterinary profession has been provided by companies such as Hills, Vetoquinol, Merial, Elanco, Centaur and VBS.

The product was soft launched and introduced to vets at various conferences throughout 2015/16 including Vets4Pets Conference, BSAVA South West, Fitzpatrick Partners in Care and Vets Now Congress.

The AIM OA team have also recently developed new partnerships with Elanco, Vetoquinol, Nupsala, VBS, Norbrook and Lintbells and will collaborate on the promotion of the app worldwide with the world’s leading orthopaedic and neurosurgery referral practice, Fitzpatrick Referrals.

Quotes:

Professor Stuart Carmichael, Co-Founder of Aim OA said: “I had the vision for the product many years ago and technology has now made it possible to bring this to life and deliver an effective patient management solution to one of our profession’s biggest challenges. The system has been built using the broad knowledge and experience of world OA experts and has been designed to be easy to use and apply in every day practice and help engage and involve the pet owner in their pet’s long term treatment plan. The system is evidence based, monitoring and evaluating the patient over time with the flexibility to adapt to the specific needs of that patient over time. Having one integrated system is hugely beneficial in terms of the resources of both the practice and the client and ultimately delivers effective management for this chronic condition whilst bonding clients to their veterinary practice. I’m delighted with the way the product has been received by the veterinary profession both here in the UK and abroad. We’re looking forward hugely to the next stage in the rollout of the system and changing the way canine osteo-arthritis is managed by vets and pet owners worldwide.”

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick Managing Director Fitzpatrick Referrals, said: I see dogs affected by osteoarthritis every day of my professional life and I welcome this innovative initiative to provide a standardised reproducible and easy to use recording system which not only provides clinically relevant baseline data but also a mechanism for monitoring ongoing quality of life. This can allow more accurate planning for patient-specific lifelong care of painful conditions such as osteoarthritis and also facilitates comparison between treatments and between centres in a more standardised fashion. The application could bring real added value for all clinicians involved in day-to-day pain management and can improve compliance and consistency of adherence to the treatment plan by actively involving the caregivers. The platform is I feel a valuable step forward which places the monitoring of patient welfare at the core of decision making in clinical veterinary practice.

Dr Jamie Crittall MRCVS, Director and Co-Founder Virtual Recall; “We were lucky enough to be a beta-test practice for Aim-OA’s amazing app from the beginning and could contribute in its development to the market-ready final product.  It revolutionises patient care with regards arthritis – enabling evidence-based medicine to help shape personal patient care. Its simple feedback and objective scoring helps us vets to bring about the best chance of good management, whilst ensuring pet owners can play an active and essential contribution to the health and care of their pet.”

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Press Contacts:
To arrange interviews/obtain quotes and further images please contact:
Mhairi Clarke, Director – One Louder PR
[email protected]
Tel: 07809 558 375

Notes to Editors:

1. Aim.OA is a new, state of the art electronic decision making tool for managing arthritis. The system has been designed to provide practices with one common system for OA management, increasing efficiency and improving extended care for OA patients.

2. The veterinary profession is seeing increasing numbers of OA sufferers. It is estimated that well over 20% of all dogs have evidence of the condition.

3. With an increasing number of options to manage, the provision of extended care through effective multimodal systems has become time consuming, complex and often patchy.

4. The AIM OA system focuses on six key areas for management and uses a traffic light system plan highlighting areas for focus.

5. The plan can be printed off and given to the owner along with the recommended exercises for the patient. There are currently over 100 exercises in the plan targeting range of motion, core stability, proprioception and strengthening.

6. The system is supported on desktop and tablet format.

7. For more information about AIM OA please visit www.aim-oa.com