Happy Trotters Isn't Horsing Around

In 2010, Happy Trotters, LLC became the first program to offer Hippotherapy to our area.  We recently took some time to learn about Hippotherapy and Happy Trotters.  

First, what is Hippotherapy? No, it has nothing to do with the hippopotamus.  It is actually a treatment strategy used by specially trained physical, occupational and speech therapists to help special needs and disabled patients.  It places the patients on specially trained horses to facilitate and enhance the therapy (Hippo is Greek for horse).

Unlike Adaptive Riding (once known as “Therapeutic Riding”), Hippotherapy can only be performed by licensed therapists, who have received further training in Hippotherapy.  It is a medical-based model.  Like any therapy, the patients have “goals” and are discharged when goals are met.  Several insurance companies now reimburse for Hippotherapy costs.

Happy Trotter’s Director and Pound Ridge resident, Melissa Jarzynski, MSPT, HPCS, specializes in pediatric physical therapy.  She had been traveling to the East Coast’s largest Hippotherapy center, Special Strides, in Southern New Jersey for years before deciding to open up her own practice, now located in Patterson, NY.  She explained, “Despite an abundance of horses in the area, there wasn’t anywhere where kids could go for Hippotherapy.”

Ms. Jarzynski, is one of only six therapists in New York state who are board certified as a Clinical Specialist, the highest level of certification bestowed by the American Hippotherapy Association. 

She explained how placing patients on a horse helps their therapy.  In a 30-minute session, a horse provides approximately 3,000 facilitory steps to a bareback rider.  To a non-ambulatory child, those are 3,000 steps they could not take without the use of the horse.  She communicates with the horse’s leader to ensure the horse’s movement is appropriately coupled with the rider, engaging the muscles that require development.  During a session, her hands are guiding and assisting the child to obtain organized, controlled movement patterns.  

She explained that the horse also impacts the child’s vestibular, tactile and proprioceptive systems.  When all of these systems are working together it sets a foundation for the development of sensory-motor skills.  This is helpful in children with disabilities ranging form cerebral palsy to autism.    

These are some of the technical reasons therapists and parents are drawn to Hippotherapy.  However, to the children it’s time to go and have some fun with their equine friend.  And that, Melissa explained, is another great advantage. “The kids are so having so much fun, they participate in their therapy much more consistently.”

To Contact Happy Trotters email: admin@happytrotters.com; call 914-874-6932; or visit www.Happytrotters.com