Lynne,
My son Alex is 2. He has hypotonia, severe reflux and significant gross motor delays. He had hippotherapy this summer and it was great. Our instructor was fun but I wasn't satisfied with her explanation of why this type of therapy is so good for hypotonia.

Thanks for your help. This is a great resource!

I just wanted to let you know it may be a couple of days for Lynne to get back to you on this as it is the Canadian Thanksgiving Holiday here. She has been sent notification of your question and will respond when she gets a chance. :)

Hi Brittany,
My apologies for the delay. I was attending a two day Technical and it was Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada.

Hypotonia is a condition of abnormally low muscle tone (the amount of tension or resistance to movement in a muscle). It is not a specific medical disorder but rather a potential manifestation of another disease and/or disorder. Finding the underlying cause at this age can prove to be very difficult.
Conditions that cause hypotomia can be congenital or aquired.

Therapeutic riding and in your case; hippotherapy, is very beneficial for people with hypotonia and gross motor delay. Speech is often affected as well and therapeutic riding can aid in that department as well.
Therapy on horseback will promote better balance, posture and speech through sensory integration, by strengthening the trunk muscles (abdominals and erectors of the spine), which also promotes speech and gross motor skills.

The rider moves dynamically with the swaying up & down motion of the horse. When sitting passively on the horse (meaning it’s the horse that influences the rider and not the other way around), the walking gait of the horse closely resembles that of a human.

Sensory integration using the horse as a tool awakens the senses. The therapist will put the person in a variety of positions, have the horse move in different gaits (halts, walk, trot, rein back) and execute different figures.

You may not see immediate results but rather a slow progression.

I hope I was able to shed some light as to why hippotherapy is beneficial for your son.

Is the instructor working with your son an OT? And is he/she, as well as the centre, NARHA affiliated?

Also, at the end of the season, did the instructor provide you with a progress report? This shows the long term and short term goals that were discussed at the beginning of the term and a summery of what was achieved.

Take care,
Lynne
CTRAI

Lynne,
Thanks so much for the reply. Your explanation was very beneficial. It makes total sense and I have seen progress since beginning riding. Unfortunately the only program in our area is not run by an OT. It's run by a riding instructor who has some knowledge of riding as therapy. We don't get a progress report and because it's not run by a certified therapist, it's not covered by insurance or Early Intervention. But overall I'm very happy with it. We take what we can get!

Yeah, the cause of Alex's hypotonia is a mystery. I hope that some day we will get an explanation but for now, we just fill our days with therapy. Aquatherapy with a PT has also been a huge help.

Thanks again. This is a wonderful resource.

Glad I could help.

There's one more aspect I would like to touch as a "head's up":
Please be careful when involving a child in a therapeutic program that is not NARHA affiliated (CanTRA for Canadians). These centres are not closely monitored by the national association for quality therapeutic treatment.

I'm not saying avoid them like the plague, as there are good therapeutic intructors who branch out on their own.

A child under the age of 4, may not have joint unions in certain areas which can be affected by their position on the horse. A child with an orthopedic disorder or delayed development whose bone age is immature compared to chronological age, choosing the appropriate horse is very important (size & gait). The angle that a joint assumes can be affected by positioning & could have a lifelong influence on the child.

These factors are best judged by an OT experienced with horses & horseback riding.

Yes, accreditated instructors, such as myself, do have the medical knowledge to teach a client therapeutic riding, but for hippotherapy, this is best done by an OT who has a more thorough degree & training.

At our centre, we do not accept children under the age of 4 because of what I've mentioned above, but we have the privilege of having an OT on site and we have, on some instances, accepted younger clients. It truly depends on the individual and if the benefits outweigh everything else.

I would suggest to you that you keep Alex's physician in the loop about the hippotherapy so he can be monitored.

Lynne
CTRAI