Barbara: Thank you. I am thrilled to be here talking about one of my favorite topics. I had no equestrian background when I started learning about hippotherapy. My son had graduated high school, and I was working in the school system. I thought, "This is a great time to learn something totally different". I took riding lessons so I could experience that sensory input. I discovered that riding a horse is actually quite difficult.
Today you will learn how hippotherapy is used to promote visual perceptual fine-motor skills, sensory processing, emotional health, social skills, communication skills and overall learning. It is a great learning tool. This is what is so great about being an occupational therapist. We have so many different areas and fields within our field, and things to learn.
Learning the Lingo
Hippotherapy is based on the term, "hippo", which means horse in Greek, not hippopotamus. When I was first learning this I found it very complicated. I hope this outline helps with this.
- Animal-Assisted Therapies (AAT)
- Equine- Assisted Therapies (EAT)
- Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP)
- Therapeutic Riding (TR)
- Hippotherapy (HPOT)
- Equine- Assisted Therapies (EAT)
There are a lot of different uses for animals in therapy. We can use dogs, cats, pigs and even birds therapeutically. We can also ride them, like horses, elephants, and even llamas in the Middle East. Today, we are specifically looking at the use of horses, which falls under the category of Equine-Assisted Therapies, EAT. EAT includes the following three: Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP), Therapeutic Riding (TR), and Hippotherapy (HPOT).
EFP might be used by a social worker, a psychologist, a counselor, or some type of medical health professional working with someone with mental health goals. Therapeutic riding and hippotherapy are similar in that it involves working with disabled people, children or adults, and they both involve riding a horse.
With therapeutic riding, the therapist does not have to be one of the three disciplines: occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech and language pathologist. However, you must be one of these three disciplines to use hippotherapy. For therapeutic riding, there is a certification, and the instructors have an equestrian background. They also have to be trained to work with people with disabilities, and their goal is to teach these people how to ride. They may prepare riders to enter the Special Olympics. They are specifically learning the many wonderful skills involved in riding, and they are also receiving that great benefit of just being on a horse; stimulation and all the other benefits that I will be talking about over the course of the next couple of hours. A Therapeutic Riding certification is great to have as an OT. Again, the OT, PT, SLP are the only ones that can perform hippotherapy. Many insurance companies cover it, as it is considered a medical modality.
Organizations
Let's go over the organizations in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Organizations.
The organization called North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, or NARHA, changed its name to Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International, PATH. If you go to their website you can get information about riding instructors and what is all involved. This is the organization for the Therapeutic Riding instructors, and some of the members can be OT, PT or SLPs. The American Hippotherapy Association is the organization for registered therapists who do Hippotherapy.
There are different facilities where Therapeutic Riding and Hippotherapy take place. Some facilities are certified that requires them to only hire Therapeutic Riding therapists who have both types of certifications, Therapeutic Riding instructors and are also one of the three therapists. The facility where I work is not certified, and only requires that a Therapeutic Riding instructor be present in the arena or nearby when I work. The only requirement was an OT, PT or SLP, and that I be very willing to learn. Then over the course of the seven years working here and a couple of other facilities, I took courses through the American Hippotherapy Association and I became certified through AHA. I was still not qualified to work at some of the facilities that also needed the Therapeutic Riding instructor certification.
