JASPER, Ind. — Charlotte Bradley of Ferdinand, 6, stood in the stirrups on Cowgirl’s back and reached to place a black magnet on a metal frame on the barn wall at Freedom Reins Therapeutic Riding Center’s facility. When she sat back down, she road Cowgirl to the other side of the arena, stood and stretched again to place a white clip on another frame. For Bradley, riding Cowgirl and sticking the magnets is play; but for physical therapist Carrie Smith, the activity is a vital part of Bradley’s treatment.
Smith specializes in hippotherapy, a treatment method that uses horses like Cowgirl to replicate pelvic movement in patients and strengthen their core to develop everyday movements. Smith has worked in the physical therapy field for 17 years. She specializes in working with children with intellectual disabilities and in hippotherapy as a treatment plan. In Smith’s opinion, hippotherapy is the best way to help special needs patients develop the core strength they need to sit up straight, use their arms and legs and even speak.
“They have very unique learning needs,” Smith said. “If you have them in a clinic or in the school system, I feel limited sometimes. I can only motivate them so much to participate. But when you bring the horse into it, they don’t think that they’re working hard. To them, it’s much more than that. It’s the relationship they have with the horse; the smells of the barn; the soft sensation of the horse’s hair; the warmth of the horse’s body; and all that movement. Meanwhile, what I’m working on is their actual life skills.”
Hippotherapy works because a horse’s pelvis moves the same way a human’s does — in three dimensions. When a patient rides the horse, the horse’s movement moves the patient’s pelvis as if the patient were walking. With each step, both the horse’s and rider’s pelvis moves up and down, front to back and side to side. In the patient, that movement activates the sensory system and helps the brain write new neuropathways. In one half-hour session, a patient gets the equivalent of 2,000 to 3,000 steps, Smith said.
“That cannot be replicated by anything on the ground,” Smith said. “That’s why I’m passionate about it.”
Bradley’s father, Chuck, attests that hippotherapy works. Charlotte suffers from Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects physical, cognitive and speech development. Charlotte first began hippotherapy a few years ago, but began with Smith last year. Chuck said the therapy has made a huge difference for his daughter.
“It really kicked her speech into high gear,” he said. “It seems like it gets everything working a little better in her body.”
Charlotte was one of Smith’s first patients at her private practice, Great Heights Physical Therapy. Smith opened her practice last fall in a space on Bob Ruxer’s farm, the same area Freedom Reins uses. Smith was working as a therapeutic riding instructor for Freedom Reins when she decided it was time to open her practice. She talked to Freedom Reins founder Ron Thyen about using some of the nonprofit’s resources.
