Notes from a Therapist
Hello! My name is Shana North and I practice physical therapy at an equine-assisted therapy center called Hope Reins in Texas. We offer traditional physical therapy services as well as hippotherapy services which incorporates using horses as one of our therapy tools when appropriate for our patients. We also offer adaptive horseback riding lessons for special needs individuals who would like to learn horsemanship and we have taken several special needs riders to perform in horse shows.
One of our patients we’ve had the privilege of working with for the past 2 years is a 42 year-old man born with cerebral palsy. We are the only therapy he has had during this 2 year period. When he first came to us, he had poor posture, could not get his heels to the ground when standing and had poor standing tolerance and balance. He also suffered with tremors and clonus almost every time he tried to stand and had an excessive amount of tone and tremors when riding his horse.
Today, this man has erect sitting posture, and can bring his head and neck up to midline. He is able to stand with his heels down for the first time in his life and maintain that stand for several minutes without tremors and clonus. He has learned to take steps across the mounting deck with the help of his therapists and mount his horse. He no longer suffers with consistent tremors or tone when riding and is progressing toward not only doing his physical therapy, but hopeful to participate in learning horsemanship and eventually performing in a horse show.
Shana here again! Hope Reins strives to not only offer therapeutic interventions for our patients and clients, but also to offer educational information on their specific diagnoses, therapeutic interventions and how they can accomplish patient’s/client’s goals, horses, horsemanship, social and communication skills and relationship building. We have also begun offering summer horse camps for individuals with special needs.
I want to share about one of our adult Down Syndrome patients, in particular, that came to us 2 years ago non-verbal, with instability during walking and difficulty going up and down stairs. He now says short sentences, sings complete songs, reads elementary grade books and can socially interact. His walking has improved and he can go up and down stairs with little difficulty now; in fact, just recently, he has begun to run, which parents have said he has never done in his life!
