Blog Entry Five – Essense of Occupational Therapy

It took me a while to understand how hippotherapy could be linked with occupational therapy. I had always thought that the Riding for disabled was classified as hippotherapy, however was shocked recently to find out that actually it is not hippotherapy but “equine assisted therapy”.

When doing research I was able to find that New Zealand only has ONE qualified hippotherapy team which is in Auckland. Totara Park uses hippotherapy due to the fact they have a physiotherapist on their team to help guide the programme. The reason for the lack of hippotherapy in New Zealand is due to the cost. To use hippotherapy, you need to send 2 people to attend a NZRDA hippotherapy course and to pass the unit standards to goes with in. You must have a therapist (occupational therapist, physiotherapist, speech and language therapist) and a horse handler to attend this course.

The RDA relies on volunteers to help with their programmes and thus funding is limited, this could be a factor in why hippotherapy is not wide range around NZ. The other factor that was raised by people I spoke to was the fact that occupational therapists are not aware of the benefits that horses bring. This can only improve with education and more research articles outlining the fact that occupational therapist can have a role in using hippotherapy

Here is the link to Totara park RDA  - http://www.totaraparkrda.org.nz

Occupational therapists role in Hippotherapy

 The occupational therapist is able to combine the effects of the equine movement with other standard intervention strategies for working on fine motor control, sensory integration, feeding skills, attentional skills, and functional daily living skills in a progressively challenging manner.

What is the difference between hippotherapy and therapeutic riding?

Hippotherapy is completed by a trained therapist (occupational therapist, physiotherapist or speech language therapist), in conjunction with a horse handler and a trained therapy horse. Hippotherapy is a one-on-one treatment and generally occurs year-round until the client meets discharge criteria. The goal of Hippotherapy is for professional treatment to improve functioning in cognition, body movement, and organization and attention levels. In hippotherapy the horse  is influencing the patient.  Therapeutic riding is recreational horseback riding lessons adapted to individuals with disabilities.  It is completed by horse riding instructor in conjunction with volunteers. In Therapeutic riding, individual is often taught riding lessons in a group format, which runs in "sessions". The instructor must respond to the group as a whole, in addition to fostering individual success. The rider influences the horse.