Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gina (00:08):
I'm excited to share with you today a little bit of
information about Hippotherapyas an occupational therapy
treatment tool.
If you're not familiar withhippotherapy, we're gonna go
over what the description of itis, how it's used in
occupational therapy, and someof my favorite things about
hippotherapy.
So the term hippotherapy refersto how occupational therapy,
physical therapy, and speechlanguage pathology professionals
(00:32):
use evidence-based practice andclinical reasoning in the
purposeful manipulation ofequine movement as a therapy
tool to engage sensoryneuromotor and cognitive systems
to promote functional outcomes.
Best practice dictates theoccupational therapy, physical
therapy and speech languagepathology professionals
integrate hippotherapy into thepatient's plan of care, along
(00:56):
with other therapy tools and orstrategies.
So to break that down, it meansthat hippotherapy is a tool that
we're using along with otheroccupational therapy tools in
our patient's plan of care.
Hippotherapy isn't a standalonetherapy or treatment, it's not a
program.
It's something that we use asone tool in our toolbox, and I'd
like to go over some of thetools.
(01:18):
Or the systems that Hippotherapyis used to assist with.
So of course I'm gonna talkabout the sensory system first,
cuz that's my favorite.
And as someone who's certifiedin sensory integration, I think
that is the main frame orreference that I tend to look at
things at, whether it'sHippotherapy or some of the
other tools that I use.
(01:40):
The way that hippotherapy or themovement of the horse can really
impact the whole body isespecially powerful to me.
So we have vestibular inputbecause we're, we're moving
through stiff base.
We have vertical displacement asthe horses back moves up and
down.
We have visual flow right aswe're moving again through
space.
(02:01):
We have auditory, we have thesound of the horse's feet
falling on different surfaces.
We have the sound of.
The horse themselves, right?
Whether they Winnie or Nay.
We have the sounds of the barnor the farm environment, so
there's a lot of auditory inputWe have.
Olfactory input.
Some of it is very positive andsome of it's a little bit more
(02:22):
noxious.
So we can think about, you know,how that might impact our
clients.
And then geator or taste, if wethink about, well, you know, the
movement of the horse isn'treally giving us any taste or
taste sensations, but I do liketo pair.
Giving maybe the horse a snackwith a healthy snack for the
child.
Since I primarily work inpediatrics, those two things
(02:45):
work really well for metogether.
Other systems that are impactedby equine movement would be the
attention and arousal systems.
It is.
Perceived as, you know, somewhatof more of a risky play type of
situation, right?
Being on a very large animal canincrease arousal.
Being on a moving animal thatyou're not really in control of
(03:06):
can increase arousal.
So we have, you know, both thosecomponents going on.
And also the impact to theattention system because there's
a lot of novelty when we're outin the equine environment.
There's a lot of novelty in themovement of the horse.
So those.
Are both affecting thoseattention systems.
(03:27):
Now, when we think abouthippotherapy, maybe you think
about more the motor side.
So thinking about balance,strength, coordination, motor
planning, and those are allimpacted and there's a lot as a
therapist, we can do tomanipulate those components.
We can, you know, speed thehorse up, slow the horse down.
We can have.
The child motor planning, youknow, the single leg stance to
(03:51):
transfer onto the horse or howdo we transfer off?
We can change positioning on thehorse.
And that's a component of motorplanning as well.
So there's a lot of motoraspects.
We have feet forward, we havefeedback.
There's a lot of intrinsicfeedback going on with the
movement of the horse, and Ithink those are all very
effecti.
(04:11):
Ways of accessing those motorsystems.
And we can also think aboutequine movement as priming the
system.
So with something likerespiration, right, the movement
of the horse is very rhythmic,and so we have an impact on the
respiratory system, both fromthat.
Postural side of, you know,improving postural alignment,
(04:35):
alignment, opening up theribcage and diaphragm, but also
for rhythmicity in respiration,we can see changes there as far
as priming the systems.
I also see that with thedigestive and elimination
systems.
So with the movement of thehorse, we have concussion.
We have a lot of movement of thedigestive system.
(04:57):
So often parents will report tome that the child will have
bowel movement after themovement of the horse kind of
gets things going.
So from a systems perspective, Ialways think of hippotherapy as
really impacting, you know, thesensory systems, attention,
arousal, the motor systems thatposture, alignment, and balance.
(05:18):
But then also, Some of the othersystems for, you know, better
regulation and betterperformance.
Then when I think aboutactivities you know, kind of
thinking about it from anactivities perspective, the
thing that sticks out to me themost is motivation.
That the movement of the horseis motivating for a lot of kids.
(05:39):
They, it feels good to theirbody.
It's something that they wantmore of, and so they're
motivated in ways.
I can't motivate them on a ballor I can't motivate them quite
the same way on the swing.
It's also, you know, for kidsthat the social aspect is big,
the horse is motivating in thatthere's a bit of a relationship
(06:00):
between them and the horse.
So there's a, an intrinsicmotivation there and.
When I'm mindful of it, thatallows me to step back a little
bit and stop providing as muchexternal feedback or external
motivators and really let thatinternal motivating system be
strengthened by the activitiesthat we're we're doing in this
(06:22):
context.
And then the contextual side ofthings, right?
We're in.
A novel environment.
We're in a community-basedenvironment.
We're in an environment that maybe unfamiliar to some of our
clients.
So, you know, helping themunderstand safety rules and
what's appropriate can really begreat for carryover into other
(06:45):
social aspects or othercommunity-based settings for
them.
So for me, as an occupationaltherapist, I can really look at.
Hippotherapy and being in thatequine environment as a
motivator, I can look at it asproviding a lot of contextual
cues that can then be carriedover to other community-based
(07:05):
settings.
And no matter what I'm doing,I'm always looking at that
carryover piece.
And in Hippotherapy, we reallywanna make sure that what we're
doing there is then going to becarried over to other settings
that that client might be in.
We wanna make sure.
That the types of skills andactivities we're working on.
I do have really good carryoverand I find that because PA
(07:28):
participation is so high when weare, you know, tapping into
those internal motivationsystems that we really do see an
improvement in performanceoverall.
So I look at then that socialrelationship when we're using
hippotherapy, we are treat.
Team.
It's not just the therapist andthe client where we might be,
(07:50):
you know, in a more traditionalclinic setting or even in a
sensory clinic.
You know, we have a horsehandler, right?
And we have the horse and wehave therapist.
We may have another therapy aid.
So, you know, there could be asmany as four people.
Plus the client and the horse.
And that is a lot of social orrelationship components to
(08:13):
manage as a therapist, but alsofor the client to interact with.
So, you know, if we leveragethose to our benefit, we really
have a lot of opportunities forthe client to work on social
skills and to work onrelationship building.
And in some cases, you know,Primary relationship might be
with the horse.
It may not be one of the, thepeople on the treatment team.
(08:36):
But then as we build rapport andas the child builds skills, they
can carry those over into otherrelationships both with family
members, with peers and with atreatment team.
So from a participationstandpoint, I like the fact
that, you know, it is a teamenvironment.
And the horse is included in theteam.
(08:57):
The client is included in theteam, and we do have other
people.
So that helps kind of with thatrapport building.
And we have more options for theclient to work on skills.
And it's not just with a trainedtherapist where we know like the
best way to prompt and we knowthe best way to set them up.
But if we have, you know, ahorse handler, they're still
(09:19):
gonna interact socially withthem, but they may not give the
same kinds of cues and thatreally makes the client have to
be more flexible.
It has to, they have to be a bitmore pragmatic and understanding
some of those social cues orreading the body language of the
person.
I also love that in thehippotherapy environment, we can
(09:39):
be, Play based, we can include alot of different types of play
skills, so we can work on again,that.
Motor piece.
As far as play goes, we can dosome movement exploration.
We can do a little bit of whatfeels like risky play, even
(10:00):
though we're setting it up in asafe situation.
And we can work on, you know,take, turn, taking, we can work
on following directions.
We can com.
Put a lot of the components forplay into our sessions and that
can be a really effective way asan occupational therapist to
target play where again, we're,we're using that motivation side
(10:23):
of things to be more effective.
So I think.
To wrap it up the things that Ilove best about Hippotherapy as
an occupational therapist isthat it's naturally motivating
for my clients, and that makesmy job a thousand times easier.
That.
When you are really well versedin equine movement and horses
(10:46):
and the environment, it makes iteasy to grade the input.
I can, I can really be very,very nuanced just with the
movement that I'm using, andthen I can layer in kind of like
lasagna, whether I want to addschool figures or, or different
environments inside, outside, orif I wanna add activities in,
that all comes in together.
(11:07):
And, you know, being able tograde the input really helps me
get that just right challenge.
I love the variety, so I canhave variety in the environment
that I work in.
I can have variety in the horsesthat I choose.
I can have variety in theequipment that I'm going to use.
I can have variety in theactivities that I'm going to
(11:29):
layer on top of equine movement.
For me, I'm a person who likes alot of change.
I don't necessarily like thingsto be the same treatment session
to treatment session.
So having that variety ishelpful for me to keep my
engagement and to help me with,you know, burnout.
And I think the last thing Iwould say of one of the perks of
(11:52):
using hippotherapy is getting tobe outside.
I love being able to, you know,be in touch with nature and.
And you know, on a sunny day inthe spring or a sunny day in the
fall, it's really just the bestof, you know, walking around,
getting movement in my own body,seeing the client benefit from
the movement of the horse,feeling the sun on my face.
(12:13):
And I think that's just a greatway to work as an occupational
therapist.
Thanks.
I'm excited to share with you today a little bit of
information about Hippotherapyas an occupational therapy
treatment tool.
If you're not familiar withhippotherapy, we're gonna go
over what the description of itis, how it's used in
occupational therapy, and someof my favorite things about
hippotherapy.
So the term hippotherapy refersto how occupational therapy,
physical therapy, and speechlanguage pathology professionals
(00:32):
use evidence-based practice andclinical reasoning in the
purposeful manipulation ofequine movement as a therapy
tool to engage sensoryneuromotor and cognitive systems
to promote functional outcomes.
Best practice dictates theoccupational therapy, physical
therapy and speech languagepathology professionals
integrate hippotherapy into thepatient's plan of care, along
(00:56):
with other therapy tools and orstrategies.
So to break that down, it meansthat hippotherapy is a tool that
we're using along with otheroccupational therapy tools in
our patient's plan of care.
Hippotherapy isn't a standalonetherapy or treatment, it's not a
program.
It's something that we use asone tool in our toolbox, and I'd
like to go over some of thetools.
(01:18):
Or the systems that Hippotherapyis used to assist with.
So of course I'm gonna talkabout the sensory system first,
cuz that's my favorite.
And as someone who's certifiedin sensory integration, I think
that is the main frame orreference that I tend to look at
things at, whether it'sHippotherapy or some of the
other tools that I use.
(01:40):
The way that hippotherapy or themovement of the horse can really
impact the whole body isespecially powerful to me.
So we have vestibular inputbecause we're, we're moving
through stiff base.
We have vertical displacement asthe horses back moves up and
down.
We have visual flow right aswe're moving again through
space.
(02:01):
We have auditory, we have thesound of the horse's feet
falling on different surfaces.
We have the sound of.
The horse themselves, right?
Whether they Winnie or Nay.
We have the sounds of the barnor the farm environment, so
there's a lot of auditory inputWe have.
Olfactory input.
Some of it is very positive andsome of it's a little bit more
(02:22):
noxious.
So we can think about, you know,how that might impact our
clients.
And then geator or taste, if wethink about, well, you know, the
movement of the horse isn'treally giving us any taste or
taste sensations, but I do liketo pair.
Giving maybe the horse a snackwith a healthy snack for the
child.
Since I primarily work inpediatrics, those two things
(02:45):
work really well for metogether.
Other systems that are impactedby equine movement would be the
attention and arousal systems.
It is.
Perceived as, you know, somewhatof more of a risky play type of
situation, right?
Being on a very large animal canincrease arousal.
Being on a moving animal thatyou're not really in control of
(03:06):
can increase arousal.
So we have, you know, both thosecomponents going on.
And also the impact to theattention system because there's
a lot of novelty when we're outin the equine environment.
There's a lot of novelty in themovement of the horse.
So those.
Are both affecting thoseattention systems.
(03:27):
Now, when we think abouthippotherapy, maybe you think
about more the motor side.
So thinking about balance,strength, coordination, motor
planning, and those are allimpacted and there's a lot as a
therapist, we can do tomanipulate those components.
We can, you know, speed thehorse up, slow the horse down.
We can have.
The child motor planning, youknow, the single leg stance to
(03:51):
transfer onto the horse or howdo we transfer off?
We can change positioning on thehorse.
And that's a component of motorplanning as well.
So there's a lot of motoraspects.
We have feet forward, we havefeedback.
There's a lot of intrinsicfeedback going on with the
movement of the horse, and Ithink those are all very
effecti.
(04:11):
Ways of accessing those motorsystems.
And we can also think aboutequine movement as priming the
system.
So with something likerespiration, right, the movement
of the horse is very rhythmic,and so we have an impact on the
respiratory system, both fromthat.
Postural side of, you know,improving postural alignment,
(04:35):
alignment, opening up theribcage and diaphragm, but also
for rhythmicity in respiration,we can see changes there as far
as priming the systems.
I also see that with thedigestive and elimination
systems.
So with the movement of thehorse, we have concussion.
We have a lot of movement of thedigestive system.
(04:57):
So often parents will report tome that the child will have
bowel movement after themovement of the horse kind of
gets things going.
So from a systems perspective, Ialways think of hippotherapy as
really impacting, you know, thesensory systems, attention,
arousal, the motor systems thatposture, alignment, and balance.
(05:18):
But then also, Some of the othersystems for, you know, better
regulation and betterperformance.
Then when I think aboutactivities you know, kind of
thinking about it from anactivities perspective, the
thing that sticks out to me themost is motivation.
That the movement of the horseis motivating for a lot of kids.
(05:39):
They, it feels good to theirbody.
It's something that they wantmore of, and so they're
motivated in ways.
I can't motivate them on a ballor I can't motivate them quite
the same way on the swing.
It's also, you know, for kidsthat the social aspect is big,
the horse is motivating in thatthere's a bit of a relationship
(06:00):
between them and the horse.
So there's a, an intrinsicmotivation there and.
When I'm mindful of it, thatallows me to step back a little
bit and stop providing as muchexternal feedback or external
motivators and really let thatinternal motivating system be
strengthened by the activitiesthat we're we're doing in this
(06:22):
context.
And then the contextual side ofthings, right?
We're in.
A novel environment.
We're in a community-basedenvironment.
We're in an environment that maybe unfamiliar to some of our
clients.
So, you know, helping themunderstand safety rules and
what's appropriate can really begreat for carryover into other
(06:45):
social aspects or othercommunity-based settings for
them.
So for me, as an occupationaltherapist, I can really look at.
Hippotherapy and being in thatequine environment as a
motivator, I can look at it asproviding a lot of contextual
cues that can then be carriedover to other community-based
(07:05):
settings.
And no matter what I'm doing,I'm always looking at that
carryover piece.
And in Hippotherapy, we reallywanna make sure that what we're
doing there is then going to becarried over to other settings
that that client might be in.
We wanna make sure.
That the types of skills andactivities we're working on.
I do have really good carryoverand I find that because PA
(07:28):
participation is so high when weare, you know, tapping into
those internal motivationsystems that we really do see an
improvement in performanceoverall.
So I look at then that socialrelationship when we're using
hippotherapy, we are treat.
Team.
It's not just the therapist andthe client where we might be,
(07:50):
you know, in a more traditionalclinic setting or even in a
sensory clinic.
You know, we have a horsehandler, right?
And we have the horse and wehave therapist.
We may have another therapy aid.
So, you know, there could be asmany as four people.
Plus the client and the horse.
And that is a lot of social orrelationship components to
(08:13):
manage as a therapist, but alsofor the client to interact with.
So, you know, if we leveragethose to our benefit, we really
have a lot of opportunities forthe client to work on social
skills and to work onrelationship building.
And in some cases, you know,Primary relationship might be
with the horse.
It may not be one of the, thepeople on the treatment team.
(08:36):
But then as we build rapport andas the child builds skills, they
can carry those over into otherrelationships both with family
members, with peers and with atreatment team.
So from a participationstandpoint, I like the fact
that, you know, it is a teamenvironment.
And the horse is included in theteam.
(08:57):
The client is included in theteam, and we do have other
people.
So that helps kind of with thatrapport building.
And we have more options for theclient to work on skills.
And it's not just with a trainedtherapist where we know like the
best way to prompt and we knowthe best way to set them up.
But if we have, you know, ahorse handler, they're still
(09:19):
gonna interact socially withthem, but they may not give the
same kinds of cues and thatreally makes the client have to
be more flexible.
It has to, they have to be a bitmore pragmatic and understanding
some of those social cues orreading the body language of the
person.
I also love that in thehippotherapy environment, we can
(09:39):
be, Play based, we can include alot of different types of play
skills, so we can work on again,that.
Motor piece.
As far as play goes, we can dosome movement exploration.
We can do a little bit of whatfeels like risky play, even
(10:00):
though we're setting it up in asafe situation.
And we can work on, you know,take, turn, taking, we can work
on following directions.
We can com.
Put a lot of the components forplay into our sessions and that
can be a really effective way asan occupational therapist to
target play where again, we're,we're using that motivation side
(10:23):
of things to be more effective.
So I think.
To wrap it up the things that Ilove best about Hippotherapy as
an occupational therapist isthat it's naturally motivating
for my clients, and that makesmy job a thousand times easier.
That.
When you are really well versedin equine movement and horses
(10:46):
and the environment, it makes iteasy to grade the input.
I can, I can really be very,very nuanced just with the
movement that I'm using, andthen I can layer in kind of like
lasagna, whether I want to addschool figures or, or different
environments inside, outside, orif I wanna add activities in,
that all comes in together.
(11:07):
And, you know, being able tograde the input really helps me
get that just right challenge.
I love the variety, so I canhave variety in the environment
that I work in.
I can have variety in the horsesthat I choose.
I can have variety in theequipment that I'm going to use.
I can have variety in theactivities that I'm going to
(11:29):
layer on top of equine movement.
For me, I'm a person who likes alot of change.
I don't necessarily like thingsto be the same treatment session
to treatment session.
So having that variety ishelpful for me to keep my
engagement and to help me with,you know, burnout.
And I think the last thing Iwould say of one of the perks of
(11:52):
using hippotherapy is getting tobe outside.
I love being able to, you know,be in touch with nature and.
And you know, on a sunny day inthe spring or a sunny day in the
fall, it's really just the bestof, you know, walking around,
getting movement in my own body,seeing the client benefit from
the movement of the horse,feeling the sun on my face.
(12:13):
And I think that's just a greatway to work as an occupational
therapist.
Thanks.
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