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| The University of Tennessee Health Science Center - Department of Comparative Medicine |
Prolonged physical restraint may be stressful to the animal and should be avoided unless essential to the research objectives. All physical restraint, other than routine manual restraint, must be described in the protocol. Physical restraint for periods longer than 4 hours must be described in detail and justified for consideration by the ACUC. Convenience alone is not adequate justification to use prolonged physical restraint. When restraint is required for more than 24 hours, consideration must be given to using the least restrictive method possible, even though it may be more costly and technically more difficult. When prolonged physical restraint is required, the following procedures must be used:
A. Animals to be placed in restraint equipment should be conditioned to the equipment by gradually increasing times of restraint until the re-quired restraint time is reached.
B. The period of restraint must be limited to the minimum required to accomplish the research objectives.
C. For comfort and safety of the animal, certain types of restraint equipment, such as slings for dogs, require that the animals be attended throughout the period of restraint. For each situation, the ACUC will make a determination as to the intensity of the attention required.
D. Generally, chairing of non-human primates for periods longer than 24 hours is discouraged. When a reasonable alternative to prolonged chair restraint is not possible, the animals must be removed from the chair for exercise periods as long and as frequently as possible.
E. Attention must be given to the possible development of lesions or illnesses associated with restraint, including contusions, decubital ulcers, dependent adamant weight loss. If these or other problems occur, prompt veterinary care must be provided. This may require temporary or permanent removal of the animal from the restraint device. If the health problem is considered serious by the DCM veterinarian tending the animal, the well being of the animal mst take priority over the experimental objectives.
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