Healing By Horseback

Our mission is to enhance physical, cognitive, and social well-being of persons with special needs/disabilities to support self-confidence through equine assisted activities of therapy in the NWA area.

Healing By Horseback Video

Hippotherapy refers to how occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology professionals use evidence-based practice and clinical reasoning in the purposeful manipulation of equine movement to engage sensory, neuromotor, and cognitive systems to achieve functional outcomes.

Benefits of Hippotherapy are seen in a variety of diagnoses/impairments:

-Cerebral Palsy

-Autism Spectrum Disorder

-Sensory Processing Disorder

-Down Syndrome

-Dyspraxia

-Social/Communication Delays

-And more...

Why The Horse?

Movement: Horses create a dynamic, three-dimensional movement that cannot be reproduced in a traditional clinic setting. The movement combined with the dynamic environment leads to functional change.

Consistency: The movement of the horse provides a simulation of a normal human walking pattern-rhythmic, consistent, and predictable.

Repetition: The movement is repetitive, allowing the patient ample opportunity to practice and refine balance responses, leading to improvements in core stabilization and postural control.

Neuro Input: When the horse's movement is transferred to the patient through hippotherapy, it produces a combination of sensory, motor, and neurological input used to treat a wide variety of diagnoses.