Therapy Services
Green-er Pastures Therapy Center offers quality occupational, physical, and speech therapy services within a non traditional, farm setting. We use traditional styled treatment rooms in an equine facility to help our patients achieve maxium benefit from their therapy sessions.
Hippotherapy may sound like a rather strange word, but essentiallyit is a treatment technique which utilizes a horse in a patient's treatment plan. If hippotherapy is deemed an appropriate course of treatment, then the therapist willl incorporate not only traditional treatment techniques; but they will also, manipulate a horse's movement to create and provide beneficial sensory and neuromotor input for the patient to interpret and ultimately benefit from; thereby helping them reach their goals.
Common Diagnoses:
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Autism Spectrum Disorder
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Brain Injury
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Cerebral Palsy
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Chromosomal Disorders
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Cerebrovascular accident (Stroke)
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Developmental delay
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Developmental Coordination Disorder
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Dyspraxia
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Functional curvature of the spine
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Genetic syndromes
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Neuromuscular dysfunction
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Prader-Willi Syndrome
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Rhett Sydrome
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Sensory Processing Disorders
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Speech and Language Delays
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Spinal Cord Injury
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy is a client-centered health profession that focuses on promoting health and well-being through everyday occupations. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the daily life activities that they want and/need to do by modifying the task or the environment to be successful. (WFOT 2012)
Occupational Therapists may incorporate hippotherapy into the occupational therapy session by focusing on the movement of the horse and how it impacts the whole person. The horse provides input that the therapist can alter to physical, sensory, cognitive, and emotional systems to address daily living skills. AHA Inc, © 2016.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapists are movement experts! They work to improve a patient's quality of life through prescribed exercise, hands-on care, and patient education. Physical therapists examine each person and develop an individualized treatment plan to improve their ability to move, reduce or manage pain, restore function, and prevent disability.
Physical Therapists may incorporate hippotherapy into a treatment session by using the horse to promote a patient's balance and improve core stability to stay centered on the horse. Postural improvements occur as riders use their muscles to maintain an upright position on the moving surface. The movement of the horse influences the movement of the pelvis and spine in a multi-dimensional pattern that can help improve range of motion, strength, posture, and postural control. AHA Inc, © 2016
Speech Therapy
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.
If the SLP determines that incorporating hippotherapy into the therapy session is beneficial, then the speech therapist will focus on improving arousal, rapidly gaining attentional focus, and motivation by manipulating the horses movement to gain optimal achievement.