Hippotherapy (therapeutic horseback riding) - an effective method for rehabilitation of sick children. Therapeutic riding has a complex effect on the child's body, improves the physical condition, normalizes the nervous system.
Hippotherapy provides development of a sense of self worth and strength, when a patient with physical disabilities get rid of the mechanical support of a wheelchair or crutches and is able to move in a strong animal. Horses are also used in therapy to improve social skills, mobilize attention, removing the background of depressive mood and many other problems.
Hippotherapy is applicable in patients with lesions of the sense organs, mental disorders, particularly such as schizophrenia and epilepsy, autism, and mental retardation, post-surgical rehabilitation, various disorders of social adaptation, deviant behavior, mental retardation , aphasia, and other diseases in which hippotherapy is effective: the loss of hearing or vision, multiple sclerosis, polio, cerebral palsy, ataxia.This method was successfully applied for the rehabilitation of patients of all age groups.
Hippotherapy is taken into service as a method of treating degenerative disc disease, scoliosis, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract associated with the violation of the kinetics, the effects of polio and heart disease, obesity, prostatitis. The therapeutic effect is achieved due to natural cyclical vibrations arising in the process of riding, as well as due to vibrations transmitted from the horse's back as it moves to the spine, joints and surrounding tissue rider. At present there is a special scale fluctuations even the horse's back, depending on the temperature and the nature of the animal, which allows you to choose a horse for the treatment of individual patients taking into account the characteristics of his disease.
Looking for patients undergoing ipoterapii, experts found. that the optimum load around the spine creates a strong muscular, improves blood circulation, metabolism in mezhpozvononyh drives.
Therapeutic riding is a highly effective and unique method of human exposure to two factors - a biomechanical and psychogenic, that the following tasks through:
psychogenic factor:
- sposobstvyet self-reliance;
- reduces anxiety;
- eliminates confusion and aggression;
- adaptation in space and time;
- getting rid of many kinds of fears;
- mobilization volitional activity;
biomechanical factor:
- develop a common human activity;
- helps restore damaged motor functions;
- forms new or restoring lost skills;
- develops audio-visual-motor and coordination momtornuyu;
- strengthens spinal muscular;
- corrects posture;
- activates the entire respiratory system, etc.
Useful articles on the topic:
- Hippotherapy
- Hippotherapy to children