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Therapies
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Hippo
Therapy
Katherine is our
model for hippo therapy. A special thank you to her and her
mom.
Hippo therapy is taken from the Latin word for horse. Hippo
Therapy benefits a wide range of adults and children with
varying degrees of physical, cognitive and or emotional
disabilities. Cerebral Palsy being one of those. It
originated in Germany in the 1600's before it came to North
America in the 1960's. There are now many accredited centers
through out the United States and Canada.
Why it Works
A horses gait
(walk)
is close to a human gait. The forward movement with the
hip/pelvis moving left to right, back and forth and tilting
forward and backward is the same as when a human walks. By
sitting passively on the horse the child’s pelvis receives
all the movement as if they were walking. It reproduces all
of the components of walking by experiencing normal
movement. Because children with cerebral palsy usually do
not develop in the same manner as a child without
disabilities IE: sitting, pulling up, crawling, kneeling,
furniture walking, then walking, their brain does not know
what it is supposed to feel like. The brain perceives these
different stages of development and records it. If someone
doesn’t go through these different stages of development,
the information isn’t there. When you place a child with CP
or another type of disability where this information was not
"input" or was lost by a head injury, being it a stroke or
other type of disability it is another way to get the
information to the brain. I always explain it as "It kick
started her brain".
Equipment used with
Hippo Therapy
There is different equipment used for hippo therapy. A child
could ride bareback with a sheepskin bareback pad. This
allows the Therapist to put the child in many different
positions on the horse. This could be facing forward,
backward sideways. Laying down or over the horse. Once
again, these different positions give the brain different
information while working different muscle groups. The
therapist may use wedges for a child that is trying to
improve their balance or harness with handles for the child
to hold onto to support themselves when working on improving
trunk control. This type of hippo therapy is usually done
with someone "driving" the horse from behind as well as with
the two side walkers. Children that have trunk control and
can ride unassisted may use a saddle. As always with the
side walkers also. As well as learn how to use reins. Rings
and balls are also used to help with reaching and
stretching. Depending on what the therapist is working on
and what therapy they want to accentuate, as well as the
abilities of the child determines which equipment is used.
Benefits of
Hippo Therapy
Besides the obvious benefit that it’s fun! It also helps to
gain confidence, self esteem, flexibility, balance and
muscle strength. The smooth, gentle, rhythmic movements of
the horse helps to reduce spastic muscles, and build muscle
strength, which in turn improve balance and sitting, that in
turn helps to improve speech. because it improves the
balance, which improves coordination of breathing, which
improves better lung capacity, which improves speech. It
builds the confidence as they gain better control of their
bodies and become more aware of the world around them. Self
esteem is improved as they reach their goals that were/are
set. Most kids don’t horse back ride so it also is a huge
self esteem booster when their friends find out that they
"ride".
Accredited vs. Non
Accredited
It
is highly recommend that if you do have your child in a
hippo therapy program that it is accredited. What that means
is they have gone through a process that has high standards
and practices that must be followed. There are licensed
therapists that will be assigned to your child. A formal
assessment is done and a individual program is set up for
your child’s specific needs. The child is usually not
required to be able to sit unassisted on the horse. The
Therapist is a back rider until the child is able to sit
unassisted on the horse. They provide side walkers on each
side of the horse for added safety. Most insurance companies
recognize the accredited programs and will cover it as
therapy. Some programs also offer scholarship programs and
parents pay what they can afford. Most sessions last for 30
minutes and are done 1-2 a week. A helmet is required. It
doesn’t have to be a special riding helmet, bike helmets are
usually acceptable.
A program that is not accredited is usually group oriented
or the child must be able to sit unassisted. Since they
usually don’t have licensed therapist that work one on one
with the child they are not usually aware of the therapeutic
aspects of hippo therapy. An excellent web sit is
http://www.NARHA.org
This is for the North American Riding for the Handicapped
Association. It is not only a extremely informative site it
also has all the centers in the United States and Canada
listed. They are listed by region. The centers that have a *
next to their names are the accredited programs. They also
are listed with address, phone numbers and web pages if they
have one.
Credit for this
report goes to Vicki Hendrickson our special thanks for your
time and effort you put into CPN and to Katherine for
letting us use her as a model.
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