Maria Calatayud received her Physiotherapy Degree from the Cardenal Herrera CEU University of Valencia, Spain, in 2008. She studied physiotherapy with the sole purpose of specializing in the physiotherapy treatment of horses. After graduation, she completed a Master’s Degree (MSc) in Osteopathic Manual Therapy while raising her children. When her youngest child was three years old, Maria was ready to commute to Madrid for a postgraduate Equine Physiotherapy course. Since then, she has been treating horses.
Her clinical experience led her to focus on myofascial pain. She has specialized in equine and human dry needling and earned her PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the Autonomous University of Barcelona with cum laude distinction. Her doctoral thesis, titled “Effectiveness of dry needling in the treatment of local pain caused by trigger points in the equine brachiocephalicus muscle”, explored the identification and treatment of equine myofascial pain.
Maria also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s in Graphic Design.
She has presented at several national and international conferences and published a study in Revista Fisioterapia Invasiva / Journal of Invasive Techniques in Physical Therapy:
Calatayud-Bonilla, M., Resano-Zuazu, M., & Segura-Ortí, E. (2019). Pain pressure thresholds for evaluating myofascial pain in the equine brachiocephalicus muscle. Revista Fisioterapia Invasiva / Journal of Invasive Techniques in Physical Therapy, 2(02), 114–114.
