The Healthy Rhythm of Horses and Autism

The Certainty of Hippocrates

Today, to the joy of those who promoted the birth of such a singular project some six years ago in that same place, the La Loma farm, owned by the Vivo Picart family, is once again the scene of horseback riding for therapeutic purposes.

In spite of distance (it’s located in Capdevila, in the Havana municipality of Boyeros), children with disabilities and their parents go there each Friday by their own means, under the premise that this practice can help the quality of life of these children.

As special education expert and therapist Idida Rigual points out, in the year 460 BC, the Greek sage Hippocrates made reference to the healthy rhythm of horses, something that European medicine reintroduced in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as some doctors at the time recommended trotting on a horse to keep healthy.

It wasn’t until the end of World War II, however, that the so-called equine therapy appeared in the Old Continent, mainly in Germany and in several Scandinavian countries.

The Road To Rehabilitation
Generally speaking, equine therapy consists of the use of horses for the physical and emotional rehabilitation of children and adults with autism, neuromotor disorders, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, changes of behavior, concentration problems, Rett’s syndrome, hyperkinesia and other pathologies.

sessions also include different exercises aimed at improving the patients’ coordination.

As referred to by world literature specializing in this topic, a horse trained for this activity transmits to the patients a certain amount of vibrations per minute during its pace. Those rhythmic impulses get to the pelvic belt, the spine and lower limbs, which provides a series of physiological stimuli that regulate the body tone and favor coordinated movement.

In order to have a better idea of the therapeutic effects, suffice it to say that when a person confined to a wheel chair rides a horse, they exercise the same muscles he or she would use if he or she was walking during that same time.

Generally, the modalities of passive and active riding can be used. In the first one, the person under treatment gets adapted to the movement of the animal without carrying out any other action, while the other one includes the performance of different exercises, among them doing circles with your arms, riding back to front or clinging to the horse’s body. Likewise, it includes an adapted program of sports horseback riding for disabled people.

Rehabilitation is also supported by the combination of activities like drawing, the use of didactic games, and music.

In the opinion of Vladimir Picart, a specialist in Zootechnics and responsible for the equestrian part of the project, animals used in equine therapy must be adult specimens, healthy and tame, and above all specifically prepared for this type of work.

I would go as far as to say that horses are very sensitive with disabled children. To me, they even recognize the limitations of the patients and are capable of not doing anything that can frighten them, he declared.

Today, there are several working groups using equine therapy, and despite difficulties of all kinds, the discipline is gaining space and credibility. It looks like Hippocrates was very much right when he spoke, in such remote times, about the horse-health link.

Beyond the aforementioned benefits, equine therapy encourages sensorial integration, develops vertical and horizontal balance, and also increases concentration, self-confidence, self-esteem and social interrelations. It also makes it possible to work on aspects referring to posture, language, space orientation and memory.

A specific working plan is devised for each case, explains Idida, according to medical assessments and the peculiarities of the condition