Hippotherapy
Hippotherapy literally refers to treatment or therapy aided by a horse. Hippotherapy promotes the use of the movement of the horse as a treatment strategy in physical, occupational and speech-language therapy sessions for people living with disabilities. Hippotherapy has been shown to improve muscle tone, balance, posture, coordination, motor development as well as emotional well-being.
While Hippotherapy relies on the natural motion of the horse, the relationship of rider and horse, and the skills of the therapist to select and apply the activities in a goal driven therapeutic way, there is often a place for lifting technology to help get a person with a disability onto the horse safely and with dignity.
HETRA
HETRA stands for Hearltland Equine Therapeutic Riding Academy. Their mission is to improve the quality of life both physically and emotionally of adults and children with disabilities through equine assisted activities. It was started in Omaha in 1989. They have grown in the past 20 years to 17 therapy horses, 12 NARHA certified instructors and over 90 students.
HETRA offers therapeutic riding, hippotherapy, therapeutic carriage driving, public riding lessons and Horses for Heroes which helps veterans of any age and type of disability.
Please visit their website at www.hetra.org or go here to get in contact with them for more information.
Therapeutic Horseback Riding
The patented SureHands Body Support is natural for transferring individuals from their wheelchairs directly onto the horse's back. Many riding programs around the world have found this to be the easiest and safest way to make this difficult transfer.
As the individual is lowered the natural separation of their legs makes it ideal for straddling the horse's back and lowering directly onto the saddle. And even when the thigh supports are removed, the body support cups maintain the lateral stability of the individual. This gives everyone the opportunity to wait until the perfect moment to release the body support and allow the individual to ride away.
SureHands track systems and other SureHands options allow individuals to be raised very high and effortlessly... making this the winning solution for hippotherapy programs.
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If you have questions about SureHands lifts for riding horses therapeutically or recreationally or for more mundane things like being able to get in and out of your bathtub, just give us a call.
