The hippotherapy, or therapy by means of the horse, is a set of medical techniques that use the horse to improve the health of a human subject. From this point of view is to be distinguished from simple recreational practices involving the horse without the supervision of specially trained medical personnel.
Ride or simply be in contact with a horse, generates emotions and feelings of well being and is, for the disabled, an incentive to react to both the psychological and physical point of view. Many disabled people suffer hardship because of their condition due to the impossibility to move freely, to exercise, run, in short, all those activities that are natural for a normal person. The ability to ride a horse returns to these people the gift of mobility and movement making them happy and helping to improve the quality of life.
The hippotherapy is the induction of mental and motor function improvements through the careful use of the many stimuli that take place during the interaction between man and horse. It makes use of those horses fit for purpose. You need a special harness while for the patient is not expected any special clothing.
There are four basic steps:
- Preparation: it is a preliminary stage in which the patient, together with the therapist, begins his approach to the horse.
- Hippotherapy: is the administration of therapeutic exercises in which the patient is not directly involved in the movements and other stimuli from the horse, but where he answers automatically; in this step it is important the careful selection and progression of the exercises given by the medical team.
- Equestrian Rehabilitation: an advanced stage of treatment, where the patients directly controls the horse through their
- Social re-integration: the main goal of the program and can be achieved for the patients who have exceeded the original psycho-motor deficits that were an obstacle to full expression of person.
Who it is aimed for
The hippotherapy it is suitable in the classic diseases of cerebral palsy, autism or Down syndrome or in diseases acquired as a result of trauma related to road or work accidents.
For this method of treatment to be effective and correct in respects of all medical, technical and regulatory requirements, must be exercised by an integrated team of personnel specifically trained and technically qualified. For the same reason, the location for this type of treatment requires a sufficient supply of enclosed spaces (indoor arena, medical room, offices, meeting room, toilets, stables, saddlery) and outdoors (fenced area, rod).