Welcome Everyone!

          This blog was created for my Girl Scout Gold Award project. My project seeks to educate volunteers on how to handle horses for hippotherapy lessons, and to make them more comfortable while volunteering at hippotherapy centers. Hippotherapy is a therapy where children and adults with disabilities take horseback riding lessons. The movement of the horse helps them become stronger and improve in their individual areas of disability.

           Hippotherapy is not a well known type of therapy, and majority of the centers are supported by volunteers. It is difficult for these centers to get many volunteers because most people are typically timid with horses and do not know how to handle them. Spreading the word about volunteering at hippotherapy centers helps them get more volunteers because when there aren't enough volunteers on a certain day lessons get canceled and children don't receive the therapy. If there are not enough volunteers for a lesson it can be unsafe for the rider; Safety comes first when riding horses. To help centers with this I've created 3 separate videos on how to lead and sidewalk a horse, groom a horse, and put on/remove the tack needed to ride a horse. Please help by sharing these videos with your neighborhood and communities.

How to Lead and Sidewalk a Horse

How to Groom a Horse

How to Put On and Take Off Tack

About Hippotherapy

How Hippotherapy Helps Children

            Hippotherapy is a type of therapy for speech and physical needs or disabilities.

“AHA (American Hippotherapy Association) 2000: Hippotherapy is a term that refers to the use of the movement of the horse as a strategy by Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Speech-Language Pathologists to address impairments, functional limitations, and disabilities in patients with neuromusculoskeletal dysfunction. This strategy is used as part of an integrated treatment program to achieve functional outcomes.” (Source one).

The movement of the horse while the patient is riding is part of the treatment approach different from balls or swings. It also puts them in a regular outside setting rather than a medical room. Hippotherapy is for adults and children with mild to severe neuromusculoskeletal dysfunction which includes,

·         Autism Spectrum Disorder

·         Cerebral Palsy

·         Developmental Delay

·         Genetic Syndromes

·         Learning Disabilities

·         Sensory Integration Disorders

·         Speech-Language Disorders

·         Traumatic Brain Injury/Stroke

·         Abnormal muscle tone

·         Impaired balance responses

·         Impaired coordination

·         Impaired communication

·         Impaired sensorimotor function

·         Postural asymmetry

·         Poor postural control

·         Decreased mobility

·         Limbic system dysfunction related to arousal and attentional skills

(Source 3)

Hippotherapy helps the individual deal with their impairments or disabilities. The Chastain Horse Park currently has 8 therapeutic riders and in Georgia there are 10 hippotherapy centers in Georgia (if each had on average 8 riders that would be 80 disabled or impaired adults and children). (Source 4)

“The movement of the horse is the strategy that a therapist uses to improve a patient’s neuromotor function. The patient may be positioned astride the horse facing forward or backward, sitting sideways, lying prone or supine. The patient interacts with, and actively responds to, the horse’s movement. The therapist’s responsibility is to continuously analyze the patient’s responses and adjust accordingly the manner in which the horse is moving. For this reason the therapist must have sufficient understanding of the movement of the horse to direct the experienced horse handler/therapeutic riding instructor to alter the tempo and direction of the horse as indicated by the patient’s responses.” (Source two)

Sources:

1.)    http://www.americanhippotherapyassociation.org/hippotherapy/present-use-of-hippotherapy/

2.)    http://www.americanhippotherapyassociation.org/hippotherapy/introduction-to-hippotherapy/

3.)    http://www.americanhippotherapyassociation.org/hippotherapy/hippotherapy-as-a-treatment-strategy/

4.)    http://www.localhorse.com/Directory/Georgia/hippotherapy/