Hippotherapy Therapy

How effective is Rehabilitation and what are improvements that could be made to the system?

The current treatment plan is guided by the Person-Environment-Occupation Model (PEOM), Rehabilitative, and Biomechanical frame of references.

If a person wants something a bit different when it comes to rehabilitation, this center is ideal. They utilize a wide range of therapies, including equine therapy, yoga and strength therapy, art and music therapy, cognitive behavior therapy a along with traditional family and group therapy. A Better Today also offers a sober living program to make transitioning from the center back into everyday life easier on their

In addition, there is a risk of Arthritis if the deformity is left untreated for a given reason, but that is rarely the case. Not only are there physical effects but emotional effects. The child may experience a lack of self esteem especially during adolescence which could end in frustration and maybe depression. Walking adjustments such as casts or special shoes have a positive and a negative effect. Large sores or calluses have a tendency to develop with the abnormal walking pattern. In result this would give the child or adult an awkward walk (Mayo Clinic). Types of clubfoot very between three categories: idiopathic, positional, and syndrome. Idiopathic clubfoot can very from a vast majority of cases but most of which are relatively unknown. The child’s foot or feet affected by idiopathic clubfoot are rigid or stiff hence making them harder to fix and manipulate. Secondly there comes Positional clubfoot, which is caused by the baby's prenatal position within the womb. Positional is easier to manipulate and can be fixed by hand. Syndrome clubfoot, is part of a larger syndrome and is especially difficult to treat. Even with treatment

Cerebral palsy is a disease of development of movement and posture which cause limit activity and disturbance in motor and sensory development in a child. A boy of age 5, is suffering from Cerebral Palsy. He has difficulty in walking due to neuromuscular impairment, difficulty in swallowing due to alteration in oral motor function, delayed growth and development due to decreased caloric intake. I will educate parents to provide a well-balanced diet, how to use an assistive device like a wheelchair, ankle-foot orthosis, and teach them to feed slowly and keep semi-upright position of a child during eating and drinking (Perry, 2013, p.1726).

Bethany’s Equine and Aquatic Therapy Services, Incorporated, more widely-known as BEATS, Inc., is a treatment facility that utilizes both hippotherapy and aquatic therapy for children with a variety of disabilities (BEATS, n.d.). Aquatic therapy employs the use of water as a means to treat various conditions by aiding in reducing chronic pain and enabling a wider range of motion (Oeverman, n.d.). Hippotherapy is a lesser known method of treating mental, physical, and sensory disabilities by using horses. When ridden, the movements of the horses’ spine and hips mimic the movements of walking or running for those who cannot. Even when stationary, the horses’ consistent breathing stimulates the muscles of the individual riding that cannot be as readily stimulated with the use of any other mechanism (B. Nugent, personal communication, February 25, 2016). This unique form of therapy enables individuals to work on balance and strength. Above all, hippotherapy is incredibly beneficial in enhancing the motivation of disabled clients. Because the children are used to clinical settings, they do not realize that the session is a part of their treatment; instead, they are simply having fun. As the occupational therapist walks close by, often times engaging the child with the use of props, photographs, or games, they are still able to work with the child in the areas of need (Applegate, 2011). BEATS incorporates these two methods as a way of engaging disabled children and efficiently

A.K. receives weekly home-based occupational therapy because of her delays in gross motor, fine motor, and self-help skills. Activities of daily living (ADL) and play are the areas of occupations that affected. Independency in ADLs is not a factor for A.K. given that she is only 2 years of age. She relies heavenly on her parents for most. ADLs that are affect include bathing, dressing, feeding, and functional mobility. A. K. needs assistance with dressing skills such as undressing and removing shoes and socks. To independently feed herself, A.K. uses adaptations. As a result, of A.K. having spastic diplegia her play skills are affected. The play skills that are affect include, moving around her environment to attain toys to play with. She also

According to the American Physical Therapy Association, the scope of physical therapy includes the prevention or minimization of problems caused by conditions of the musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, cardiovascular, pulmonary, or integumentary systems (APTA, 2016). One of the less conventional physical therapy treatment options is hippotherapy, also called equine-assisted therapy. Hippotherapy, as defined by the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International, is the use of the motion of a horse as a treatment strategy by occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech language pathologists to address problems in patients with neuro-motor and sensory dysfunctions (PATHI, 2016). Although not a commonly known therapy,

They can opt between different types of therapies or even surgery. Physical therapy will try to help the patient gain some independence through stretching, flexibility exercises and range-of-motion activities. Occupational therapy will help with the development of skills to perform daily life activities. Most of the time they will focus on strengthening their hands and fingers since they are not able to move the majority of their bodies. A benefit of doing this therapy is that it will improve the patient’s learning abilities, which will make a significant change in their lives. Another type of therapy is speech therapy, which aims to improve basic language and vocabulary development. It is crucial that a patient of cerebral palsy knows how to communicate with their caregivers or anyone who can provide help to them. Fortunately, there is also medication that can help the patients with their condition. Benzodiazepines can be prescribed to alleviate muscle stiffness; Diazepam is mostly used at treating stiffness of the legs. Patients can also undergo surgery; a highly recommended one is the Selective Doral Rhizotomy, which main goal is to relax the muscles and improve mobility in various

All of the experimenters are practicing physical therapist, so they provided direct insight and knowledge into the area of study. The experimenters hypothesized that Adeli Suit treatment would promote balance and walking techniques, thus increasing the child’s gross motor movements (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). To begin, they selected an eight year-old girl who was born with cerebral palsy, and had received orthopedic surgery to release her hamstrings and calf muscles, so she was able to walk (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). The participant had normal functioning cognition, social skills, and communication, but her legs prevented her from walking no more than five to six steps at one time (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). The participant was tested at the beginning of the experiment, for a total of six weeks, and again after the duration of the experiment at twenty-five weeks. Dependent variables included, walking speed, gross motor function, and balance (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). The results show the participant increase her walking speed from 89.0% to 91.6% and stride length, and therefore, increasing her balance (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). Also, there was an increase in extension at the hip, and flexion of the ankle, both contributing to an increase in walking speed (Ko, Lee, Kang, & Jeon, 2014). From the results, the authors conclude that Adeli Suit Therapy is an effective treatment for children that live with cerebral pals; however, the study does present problems. Most importantly, the study is not generalizable because it only studies one participant, thus future studies must test a larger pool of

Specified approaches are used in the clinical settings for the treatment of cerebral palsy. However, there are certain programs related to physiotherapy that are strongly associated with the reduced state of cerebral palsy. Injections of botulinum toxins play an extremely significant role in addressing the condition of cerebral palsy (Shatrov, et al, p. 391). Constraint Induced movement therapy is a very common approach, which is used to eliminate this disease. All of these approaches are directly associated with improved health status of the patients (Darrah, et al, p.

Among the many developmental disabilities known in the world today, “Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common motor disability in childhood.” (ythfcku) Cerebral Palsy is the term used to describe a number of different chronic conditions that impair the body’s movement and muscle coordination; this is typically caused by some extent of brain damage. The following paper will go on to inform you about all aspects of cerebral palsy so that you shall have a better understanding of this specific disability. The first thing to be explained is exactly what cerebral palsy is and the complications along with the disorder, what the different causes are of cerebral palsy, and then I shall go on about how to diagnose and treat the symptoms one would have to live with.

The first article I read studied the effects of aquatic therapy on mobility of individuals with neurological diseases. Those with neurological diseases and disabilities use aquatic therapy because the properties of hydrodynamics help their mobility (Marinho-Buzelli, Bonnyman, & Verrier, 2015). According to Marinho-Buzelli, Bonnyman, and Verrier (2015), "aquatic therapy was defined as a program, using mechanical and thermal characteristics of water during partial or complete immersion as a single, one-to-one or group treatment". This systematic review used RCTs and quasi-experimental studies. During the study, the most common way to test mobility was by measuring the patient's dynamic balance. This was measured by a series of tests. The

muscle biopsy – where a muscle tissue is removed using a biopsy needle. Results will reveal deposits of fat and connective tissue that confirms the diagnosis of muscular dystrophy.

Cerebral Palsy is a condition that involves the brain and nervous system which results in disorders in movement, learning, hearing, seeing and thinking. There has been a rise on the number of children who are diagnosed with CP since the 1960’s (Mattern-Baxter, 2010). After a child has been diagnosed with CP, it is important to help them regain their ability to walk. Cerebral palsy is a permanent but not unchanging condition that requires the help of medical professionals, the children and their families (Mattern-Baxter, 2010). Since the recent increase of the number of children diagnosed with CP, researchers has emphasized the importance of intensive intervention at an early stage (Prosser, Lee, VanSant, Barbe, & Lauer,