Why the horse?

Hippotherapy is a physical, occupational, and speech-language therapy treatment strategy that utilizes equine movement as part of an integrated intervention program to achieve functional outcomes. Equine movement provides multidimensional movement, which is variable, rhythmic and repetitive.

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The horse provides a dynamic base of support, making it an excellent tool for increasing trunk strength and control, balance, building overall postural strength and endurance, addressing weight bearing, and motor planning.

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• Equine movement offers well-modulated sensory input to vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and visual channels.

• During gait transitions, the patient must perform subtle adjustments in the trunk to maintain a stable position.

• When a patient is sitting forward astride the horse, the horse’s walking gait imparts movement responses remarkably like normal human gait.

 

The effects of equine movement on postural control, sensory systems, and motor planning can be used to facilitate coordination and timing, grading of responses, respiratory control, sensory integration skills and attention skills.

 

Equine movement can be used to facilitate the neurophysiologic systems that support all bodily functions used daily. Putting it more simply, the horse’s walk provides sensory input through movement, which is variable, rhythmic, and repetitive. The resultant movement responses in the patient are like human movement patterns of the pelvis while walking. 

 

The variability of the horse’s gait enables the therapist to grade the degree of sensory input to the patient, and then utilize this movement in combination with other treatment strategies to achieve desired results. Patients respond enthusiastically to this enjoyable experience in a natural setting, which has been specifically designed at the Old Vicarage to feel as much like a home setting as possible.