hippotherapy anyone?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
hippotherapy anyone?
2
Tue, 08-22-2006 - 10:29am

The closest place that offers OT and ST (and the only one with no waiting list, most locally are up to 12 months) does hippotherapy (with horses, equine movement stuff). DH can't find scientific data supporting it, so it's in the category of aromatherapy for him. He's completely turned off by it and isn't really interested. But I'm of the mind that if they're all board certified OT's and ST's and SP's then who cares if the kid is sitting on a horse or on a swing or on a ball in the back of a buick as long as we see results. Besides I'm about to head out on a ledge soon without help so I'm predjudiced. Kivrin nearly broke my nose yesterday. I had to restrain her in a grocery store and when I thought I had her calm enough for joint compressions she suddenly threw her head back. I saw what was happening in time to move a tiny bit, so I'm just tender and a little bruised, but I'm getting tired of this sort of thing. Tender and bruised is not really a victory anymore. I want professional help now. Granted we have an eligibility appointment with the school district tomorrow, but what if we disagree with the placement, or don't get a placement for some reason? I finally got the insurance company to agree to cover the OT and speech and this place will begin Kiv on Friday. I did a site visit. They seemed professional, capable. The place was beautiful, clean, well maintained and organized. AAAAAArghhhhhh....I guess I'm venting more than anything. Sometimes I just need to vent to people who really understand. This has been such a hard hard hard year. Anyway...if you do happen to know anything about hippotherapy, particularly anything scientific in nature I'd appreciate it. I have told DH all this. And I am having Kivrin's prescription faxed over in case the eligibility meeting with the school is a disaster tomorrow. He did agree that 12 more months of waiting is unacceptable. I just wish we could both be on the same page for once.

Mary

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 08-22-2006 - 11:00am

Cait has been doing hippotherapy for 6 years. Mike did it for about 2 years then decided he didn't want to anymore. He wanted to do martial arts. We have absolutely loved it for her.

It is hard to find scientific data on it and my DH is like that too, but it is hard to find scientific data on speech interventions, OT and even many educational approaches that are used. It isn't one of those out there weird interventions. At ours the director is an orthopedic specialist and works with many OT's etc. They use a combined discipline type approach that is very similar to doing OT and speech at the same time. It is similar to many exercises she would be doing in other therapies but on a horse.

Plus being on a horse in and of itself has many good benefits.

I don't have time to go to far into it, but I will tell you that my neurologist was very impressed with Cait's muscle tone since Cait was/is hypotonic. She asked me what we were doing for that because what ever it was was working. I told her at that time the only thing was and had been for years was hippotherapy. She said "That makes sense, hippotherapy is good". So there ya have it. CLosest thing to scientific data I can find.

Cait is also an animal fanatic so this is great for her emotionally and socially. She just started volunteering there at the place where she rides to learn job skills as well. They know Cait there and have many disabled people volunteering. It is a great experience for her.

Renee

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Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 08-22-2006 - 11:23pm

Well I don't have any scientific research but if you want to see my own (unbiased) rendition of my son's first two sessions (he's only had two) I'll post the links here:


Session one: http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-pspddnos&msg=6904.12


Session two: http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-pschristian&msg=29382.1&ctx=0


(yes, session two is posted on my other board....what a bad boardie, lol)

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