The Texas Tech Therapeutic Riding Center uses hippotherapy to help people in the Lubbock community learn to cope with serious medical conditions.
Hippotherapy - a form of treatment on horseback - uses a horse's natural motion to help people with movement dysfunction, according to the American Hippotherapy Association Web site, www.americanhippotherapyassociation.org.
"The Texas Tech Therapeutic Riding Center has been around since 1998," said Heather Hernandez, center coordinator. "We see about 60 clients a week, and it's different people from semester to semester."
According to the Web site, hippotherapy can be beneficial to people with a variety of conditions, including Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, developmental delays, traumatic brain injuries, strokes, autism and learning or language disabilities.
The horse's walk provides movement that is variable, rhythmic and repetitive, according to the Web site. The horse's motion causes the rider's torso and pelvis to shift backward and forward slightly. This movement provides the rider with a physical motion similar to the human walk.
"That helps those patients who haven't walked before or, in the case of stroke victims, have forgotten how to walk," said Olivia Whitefield, a speech language pathologist at the center. "It lets them feel how it feels to walk. There's no machine anywhere that can simulate that."
Hippotherapy does not focus solely on physical therapy, Hernandez said.
"Hippotherapy involves cognitive, physical and speech therapy," Hernandez said. "We see children and adults with all kinds of disabilities."
Hippotherapy can improve a person's balance, posture, mobility and operational abilities, according to the Web site. It also may affect psychological, cognitive, behavioral and communication functions.
"Hippotherapy helps in different ways," Whitefield said. "One way is motivation. When you get a kid on a horse, they have to use verbal or gestural communication to tell that horse what they want to do. It's more motivating for them in real life than in a hypothetical situation."
She said even the physical movement of the horse helps the patients' communication skills.
"Sometimes we turn them backwards on the horse with their hands on the horse's rump," Whitefield said. "The movement of the horse's walk provides stimulation through the hands, arms and up into the face. It stimulates the oral and facial musculature."
The Therapeutic Riding Center is the only center in the Lubbock area to be certified by the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, Hernandez said.
"We're an accredited center, and that's one things that helps us stand out, I think," she said. "They judge on the safety, the horses, the facilities, everything."
Whitefield said a semester of hippotherapy costs $65 per patient, a cost the center helps with.
The Therapeutic Riding Center's employees apply for grants and conduct various fund raisers throughout the year to help cover the costs of the therapy sessions, Hernandez said.
"One-hundred percent of our clients get some form of ridership," she said. "Probably 80 percent are on full riderships."
Because the center is a part of Tech, students enrolled in Principles of Hippotherapy, ANSC 3309, work at the center with the certified therapists. Hernandez said that gives the center about 30 students per semester, but they always need more people to help.
"We're a volunteer-based program," she said. "We need people to side walk and lead the horse. We always need volunteers."
Anyone interested in volunteering can contact the center by e-mailing Hernandez at heather.hernandez@ttu.edu or calling (806)792-4683.
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