Horse therapy or equine therapy is a form of MS therapy, that can help to increase how well those of us, diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, can function.

What is Equine or Horse Therapy?

Equine or Horse therapy is where a series of exercises are performed, while the person is sitting or riding on a horse.  There has been an increase in the number of horse riding academies that are offering equine or horse therapy as a physical therapy or rehabilitation for people with a variety of different health conditions, which is having an amazing impact in helping to improve how well people with often severe health problems to improve in how well they can function.

As another form of physical therapy, horse therapy has been gaining more support and has been found to have dramatic results with helping people, both adults and children, with more severe health conditions, like Multiple Sclerosis, ADD/ADHD, severe autism or even people that have suffered a mild to severe stroke to be able to function better again.

Exercising on the horse strengthens the muscles and increases balance, which allows the person to be able to stay on the horse without falling off. Once the person is able to balance on a horse, so that they don’t fall off, the therapists can lead the horse around, while the person undergoing therapy is sitting on it. This helps to get the person used to the movement of walking again and can actually help to retrain the brain to get used to the movement and natural gait of walking again, even if the person is not able to physically walk for a period of time.

How can doing Horse or Equine Therapy help to reduce the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis and help those of us with MS to function again?

Horse therapy or equine therapy is an excellent MS therapy that can help to increase muscle strength, increase balance, by increasing the strength of trunk muscles (the muscles around the waist and the lower back that help us to sit up, to balance and keep from falling off of a chair), increase leg strength, increase stamina, and retrain the body and the brain for walking (gait training therapy).

It has been found that the natural gait of the horse mimics the natural walking gait of a person walking. This can be used to help retrain our brains for helping those with MS to learn to walk again.

Horse therapy or equine therapy can help reduce Multiple Sclerosis symptoms by increasing stamina, increasing muscle strength, regenerating reduced muscle mass, restore the ability to balance and sit up, improve mood, retrain the brain with gait training or with getting the brain used to the natural movement of walking again,  help to stimulate the nerves to reconnect neural pathways by stimulating the muscles connected to the nerves, reduce bladder incontinence and reduce bladder infections by boosting immunity.
 
Horse therapy has been reported to have been used with good results for certain types of health conditions, where the people were unable to walk before starting with this type of therapy, and, after doing extensive exercises using Equine therapy, they were able to walk again. This means that equine therapy has been shown to have the ability to help people with Multiple Sclerosis walk again, by retraining the brain to get it used to what it is like for the body to walk again.

Doing therapy MS patients can benefit from doing is the main focus of doing any type of physical therapy. To do horse therapy, the equine therapists have to be specially trained and experienced at working with horses, be a trained therapist with experience in working with disabled patients and with patients with Multiple Sclerosis.  The therapist must also have training and experience doing physical therapy using horses to maintain a fun and safe way to provide the retraining of the person's body using horse therapy.

To be effective, horse therapy needs to be done consistently over a longer period of time for those of us with Multiple Sclerosis to gain the benefits from doing equine therapy. Horse therapy can help with retraining the brain to allow us to walk again, with physically strengthening muscles and redeveloping neural pathways throughout thee body.

This may be something that can really help those with Multiple Sclerosis return to being able to function again. To evaluate this idea, more research needs to be done in this area to determine if this is something that can provide the desired end results for Multiple Sclerosis patients. This is the concept behind Equine or horse therapy.

The main drawback with using horse therapy as another form of MS therapy is that often the help insurance do not cover horse therapy as a acceptable form of physical therapy, since this is not a main stream approach for rehabilitation for Multiple Sclerosis patients.

As equine or horse therapy becomes a more widespread type of physical therapy used for Multiple Sclerosis, the insurances are mostly not to cover the expenses for this form of therapy, which leaves the burden of the expense of going for this type of therapy to the MS patient.

The  idea that there may be a way to retrain the brain of those with MS that have been unable to walk for an extended period of time is a promising idea for helping those of us, who have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and have been unable to walk for a period of time, to regain the ability to walk again and is definitely worth considering if it is available near where you live and if you are able to find a way to pay for this type of physical therapy.

Horse therapy is one type of physical therapy that help to retrain the brain to get used to the natural rhythm of walking again, even if you haven't been able to walk for a few years or a more extended period of time.

Horses also sense the degree of handicap that the person has that is going for the horse therapy.  It does help if you like horses or are not afraid of them for deciding to go for horse therapy.

Horse therapy is not recommended for everyone as a MS therapy, since if you are afraid of big animals, or you don't trust horses then it is probably better if you choose a different type of physical therapy that you feel more comfortable with doing for you to gain more of the benefits of doing as physical therapy.

The farms or facilities that maintain horse or equine therapy facilities does do fund raising to help to support the operation costs of maintaining and running the horse therapy facilities and at times there  are scholarships available for those patients looking into going for horse therapy.

Each horse therapy facility may have different requirements and different setups for their facility and their funding sources for going for horse therapy.

Check with the horse therapy facilities, near you, if you are considering looking into going for horse therapy.

To find out more about Multiple Sclerosis, along with more about ways to help reduce MS symptoms, complete the form below to subscribe to our FREE Multiple Sclerosis Report.

First Name:

Last Name :

Email Address: