Blog 18: 2-Hour Meeting Answer #3

1.  What is the most important benefit a child with special needs receives with equine assisted therapy?

2.  My third answer is: Hippotherapy offers postural improvement to the patient. 

 

3.  

• Good posture means your bones are properly aligned. 
•  Proper alignment is necessary for  muscles, joints and ligaments to work properly.
•  Internal organs are in the right position and can work more effectively with good posture.
• Bad posture can lead to serious health issues, including chronic back pain. 

 

4.  My mentor helped me justify this answer.  Also, a CBS news interview article i found online helped me. http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-3480_162-595438.html

 

5.  From here, I plan to look more into the positives and negatives of posture. I will look up how,exactly, improved posture is obtained on the horse by the patient. This will help me and others fully understand my third answer and ultimately give me a solid answer to my EQ.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

1)      What is the most important benefit a child with special needs receives through equine assisted therapy?

2)      How is the movement of the horse beneficial to the patient

3)      Are there different patterns you use and do with the horse during sessions? If so, what is the purpose of each one? How is it beneficial?

4)      How is trunk strength improved during Hippotherapy?

5)      How does Hippotherapy help improve posture?

6)      What do you do to help improve balance of a patient?

7)      How many times does Hippotherapy need to be repeated before it becomes effective?

8)      Does size of the horse play a factor? How much?

9)      Is there a maximum age for Hippotherapy?

10)  Do kids in your clinic also attend Hippotherapy?

11)  What are the main uses of the diaphragm? And how are they improved while doing Hippotherapy?

12)  Do you enjoy working as a physical therapist? Why? Did it take a lot of schooling?

13)  Do wish for anything in the future for leaps and bounds? Or Hippotherapy in general?

14)  How often does a horse get used for therapy? 

15)  Is it important to work with the kids off the horse as well? Why?

16)  Does the horse provide relaxation to the patient? If so, Why?

17)  Have you ever had to turn away a patient for any reason?

18)  When do you know when a patient is done with therapy? Will their improvements last forever?

19)  Does it affect the patient if more than one therapist works with them? (If you work with them one day and another therapist works with them another day, will it affect them at all?)

20)  Have there been cases where Hippotherapy just doesn’t help the patient? Or have there been cases where Hippotherapy stops helping the patient?

Third Interview

Interview with Casandra Sanders-Holly

1)      Q: What is the most important Benefit a child with special needs receives through   equine assisted therapy?

A: Trunk strength and postural improvement, balance training in a multidirectional manner with a high dosage of repetitions

2)      Q: How many patients do you see a week?

A: Is it hard keeping up with all of them! Between Hippotherapy and the clinic,     we see over 80 a week. Yes!

3)      Q: What are some factors to consider when doing Hippotherapy?

A: There are some children that are not appropriate for Hippotherapy.

4)      Q: Does age of a patient matter? 

A: The minimum age is 18 months.

5)      Q: Why do you use different horses for different patients?

A: Different horses have different movement, it depends what the child needs. Size and width matter too.

6)      Q: Does age or type of a horse play a factor? 

A: We use all ages and all types! It doesn't have to be a broken down old horse. We have 4 year olds!

7)      Q: What are the effects that Hippotherapy gives to a patient? 

A: Improved trunk strength, postural alignment and balance

8)      Q: Is it better to use a bareback pad rather than a saddle? 

A: Yes the movement then can transfer directly to the patient. Sometimes a saddle can help promote a different pelvic alignment for the rider.

9)      Q: Are there different techniques that you use for each patient? Or is it just one technique for all the patients? 

A: All different techniques, they are subtle, mostly it's the different horses.

10)  Q: Can you recommend any sources or books I can use for further research? 

A: The American Hippotherapy Association website has a lot of reading resources!

Blog 16: 2 Hour Meeting Answer #2

1. What is the most important benefit a child with special needs recieves through equine assisted therapy?
2. My second answer is: Hippotherapy provides relaxation through a relationship with the horse.
3. Some facts are:

• The heart rate of the child drops when he/she is on the horse, compared to when they are off of the horse before the session.
• Studies have shown that some children are calmer and quieter when around the horse.
• Hippotherapy takes the patient out of the traditional clinical setting and places them into a more relaxed atmosphere in order to help meet their functional goals. They are in a natural environment, which may help integrate their needs into everyday life experiences. Children, who are sensitive to being "different" do not consider the riding environment to be a clinic.

4. I found this information from discovernac.org The National Ability Center has a list of different opportunities and activities people with special needs can take advantage of. The website gives information about each of the different opportunities and activities.
5. I plan to continue my study of answer 2 by doing further research into how and why the horse and therapy relaxes the patients.

Blog 15: independent component 2 plan

1) for my second individual component, I plan on doing an additional 30 hours of mentorship at leaps  and bounds therapeutic riding.
2) my plan will meet the 30 hours because I am just doing additional time at my mentorship. I will go twice a week instead of once a week.
3)my component relates to my EQ because it is hands on learning. I will understand the benefits of equine assisted therapy first hand. I will also be able to ask my mentor any questions that come up, bettering my understanding.

Blog 14: Independant component 1

Literal
(a) I, Amber Meek, affirm that I completed my independant component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) Sheri Meek (909)988-2000

(c)https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsEoEBm8As4OdENCc2dBYmlQNmhlWFl4WEhLcGJxLWc

(d) For my first independant component, I focused on bettering my riding on my horse. This included going to shows and competing with people my age and practicing at home or at a park. One thing I did was I attended a show and my placings weren't as high as I would have liked them to be. I then took the judge's comments that she left me and I read them over. I went home and read them over again, this time practicing what I did wrong on my horse. I repeated this process multipule times until I achieved an outcome I was striving for.

Interpretive
I was not able to upload pictures onto my blog. There was a problem when trying to put them up and it would not let me post the pictures. I have many pictures of me and my horse at shows, practicing at home, and also at the park. I will work on uploading my pictures as soon as possible as soon as I know how to fix the problem.

Applied

 

Ginger and I at a horse show

 

I gave ginger a bath after I practiced riding her.

Ginger and I at a horse show. We were participating in the trail class. We got 1st place!

My cousin and I were taking a break after a long day at a horse show. 

Ginger's all ready for the Christmas parade!

Practicing at the park with my fellow riders.

Ginger and I in a showmanship class.

The component helped me understand the foundation of my topic better because it really opened my eyes as to what I was doing wrong and what I was doing right as a horseback rider who competes in shows. It taught me that you can't forget the little details when competing in shows because the judges will notice and your score in the class will most likely suffer because of it.