Horse
therapy ms: how can those of us benefit from doing horse or
equine therapy?
What
is Equine or Horse Therapy ?
Equine or Horse therapy is where a series of exercises are performed,
while the
person is sitting or riding on a horse. There has been an
increase in the number of horse riding academies that are offering
equine or horse therapy as a physical therapy or rehabilitation for
people with a variety of different health conditions, which is having
an amazing impact in helping to improve how well people with often
severe health problems to improve in how well they can function.
Horse
therapy ms has been found to be an effective way to help
people, both
children and adults, who have problems with Multiple Sclerosis, ADD or
ADHD, for severe autism or even people that have had mild to
more
severe strokes.
Exercising
on the horse strengthens the muscles and increases balance, which
allows the person to be able to stay on the horse without falling off.
Once the
person is able to balance on a horse, so that they don’t fall off, the
therapists can lead the horse around, while the person undergoing
therapy is
sitting on it. This helps to get the person used to the movement of
walking
again and can actually help to retrain the brain to get used to the
movement
and natural gait of walking again, even if the person is not able to
physically
walk for a period of time.
How
can doing Horse or Equine Therapy
help to reduce the symptoms
of Multiple Sclerosis and help those of us with MS to function again?
Equine therapy can help to increase muscle strength, increase balance,
by
increasing the strength of trunk muscles (the muscles around the waist
and the
lower back that help us to sit up, to balance and keep from
falling off of a chair),
increase leg strength and retrain the body and the brain for walking
(gait
training therapy). It has been found that the Natural gait of the horse
mimics
the natural walking gait of a person walking. This can be used to help
retrain
our brains for helping those with MS to learn to walk again.
Horse
therapy MS can help reduce Multiple Sclerosis symptoms by increasing
stamina, increasing muscle strength, regenerating reduced muscle mass,
restore the ability to balance and sit up, improve mood, retrain the
brain with gait training or with getting the brain used to the natural
movement of walking again, help to stimulate the nerves to
reconnect neural pathways by stimulating the muscles connected to the
nerves, reduce bladder incontinence and reduce bladder infections by
boosting immunity.
Equine therapy has been reported to have been used with good results
for
certain types of health conditions, where the people were unable to
walk before
starting with this type of therapy, and, after doing extensive
exercises using
Equine therapy, they were able to walk again. This means that equine
therapy
has the potential of being able to help people, who have been diagnosed
with Multiple
Sclerosis walk again,
by
retraining the brain to get it used to what it is like for the body to
walk
again.
Using Equine therapy with the MS patients over an extended period of
time
gradually helps to retrain the brain, followed by strengthening and
basically
retraining the body through physical exercises.
This
may be something that can really
help those with Multiple Sclerosis return to being able to function
again. To evaluate this
idea, more research needs to be done in this area to determine if this
is
something that can provide the desired end results for Multiple
Sclerosis
patients. This is the concept behind Equine or horse therapy.
The idea that
there may be a way to retrain the brain of those with MS that have been
unable
to walk for an extended period of time is a promising idea for helping
those of
us, who have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and have been
unable to
walk for a period of time, to regain the ability to walk again.
