Hippotherapy 101
Hippo-what?
When I tell people about hippotherapy, I get a lot of “smile and nods,” blank stares, and “what exactly are you doing with hippos?”
Luckily, there are no hippos involved.
“Hippo” is latin for “horse,” and hippotherapy is therapy using the movement of the horse as a treatment tool. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists can all utilize hippotherapy as a part of their treatment sessions.
The movement of the horse has myriad benefits for our patients, so for brevity’s sake I will list a few of the biggies below:
The movement of the horse closely simulates the movement of the human pelvis while we walk, so riding a horse is a great way to give that input to a child who is learning to walk for the first time or to an adult who is learning to walk again after an injury or disease. This three-dimensional movement is extremely difficult to reproduce with other means, and the horse allows us to give thousands of repetitions rather than the 20-30 we could do with our hands and a physioball.
Riding a horse is an excellent way to build core strength! Without core stability, it is very challenging to use your arms for things like writing, brushing your teeth, or getting dressed. Occupational therapists can use the movement of the horse to help their patients with fine motor skills and self-care tasks.
Equine movement helps with speech production. Sitting on a moving horse encourages upright posture and strengthens the core muscles essential for respiration and speech. I’m not a speech therapist, but I notice many of my patients are able to speak louder and hold sounds for longer after a few minutes on the horse.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, HIPPOTHERAPY IS AWESOME!
But here’s where things get hairy….
INSURANCE.
When I tell my friends and family about hippotherapy and they think I’m doing therapy with hippos, just imagine what the insurance companies think. It’s confusing! Especially when you start adding therapeutic riding, equine assisted learning, equine therapy, and all those other things into the mix.
Many insurance companies have decided this confusion is a good reason to deny coverage for therapy services when hippotherapy is involved!
You guys can help us out by using some of the terminology guidelines below!
We don’t do hippotherapy. Hippotherapy is a tool that PTs, OTs, and SLPs use in their practice. Think about it like a physioball. We don’t “do physioball therapy” when we use the ball during a treatment just like we don’t “do hippotherapy” when we use the horse in a treatment. Instead we call it PT/OT/ST utilizing hippotherapy or PT/OT/ST using the movement of the horse. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but its worth it because it will help our patients receive coverage for their therapy services!
What we used to call “therapeutic riding” should be referred to as “adaptive riding.” The use of the word therapeutic suggests a therapist is involved and is very confusing to insurance companies and the public. Adaptive riding teaches horsemanship skills to people with special needs, just like adaptive swimming teaches swimming skills to people with special needs.
“Equine therapy” refers to therapy where the equine is the patient!
The American Hippotherapy Association (AHA) released a terminology update this year that provides a lot of useful information. If you’re interested in reading more, you can access that article by clicking the button below.
P.S. Still want to read more? Belmont University wrote up a really great article last year about hippotherapy and my experiences with hippotherapy while in PT school - you can check that out by clicking the button below!