Development and Use of the Horse Grimace Scale - a conversation with Emanuela Dalla Costa

As horses don't express pain vocally, judging discomfort in equines is not always easy. In this episode of Equidemia Insights, I am talking to Emanuela Dalla Costa. She developed a scale that uses facial expressions of horses to detect equine discomfort and pain, and categorises it in different levels. Before the HGS was developed, discovering unspecific discomfort was difficult. If you don't know what you are looking for, you won't find it. That has changed now!

In a nutshell

Why is judging pain in horses so difficult?
Because horses don't express pain vocally.

What does the Horse Grimace Scale do?
It uses facial expressions to detect equine discomfort and pain, and categorises it in different levels.

Sources

• Dalla Costa, E., Minero, M., Lebelt, D., Stucke, D., Canali, E., & Leach, M. C. (2014). Development of the Horse Grimace Scale (HGS) as a pain assessment tool in horses undergoing routine castration. PLoS ONE, 9(3), e92281. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092281
• Dai, F., Leach, M., MacRae, A. M., Minero, M., & Dalla Costa, E. (2020). Does Thirty-Minute Standardised Training Improve the Inter-Observer Reliability of the Horse Grimace Scale (HGS)? A Case Study. Animals, 10(5), 781. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10050781
• Werner, L. C., de Oliveira, G. M., Daros, R. R., Dalla Costa, E., & Michelotto, P. V. (2024). Enhancing the Horse Grimace Scale (HGS): Proposed updates and anatomical descriptors for pain assessment. The Veterinary Journal, 307, 106223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tvjl.2024.106223

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Keep listening: Unravel Equine Health & Performance – a conversation with Sue Dyson: https://equidemiainsights.podigee.io/28-suedyson

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