Hippotherapy
Today, every 20th citizen of Russia is invalid. And unfortunately, this sad situation does not seem to improve soon. These people, and especially children, are in desperate need of social adaptation system, because the way to help is highly individual for each disabled person.
It is evident that state and government institutions cannot provide such help. We believe that a lot of help should come from public institutions, such as our Fund.
Treating disabled people with horseback riding is not new. It is wide spread around the world, with many organizations successfully helping many children. In Russia, for example, this is most popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, most often this job is limited to very basic riding. Of course it is better than nothing, but it does not make as much help to disabled child's health as it could.
More than 50 years ago, Liz Hartel suffered from poliomyelitis, but thanks to 8 years of extensive riding training, she became Denmark's 1952 Olympic Silver Medal dressage winner! This phenomenon was thoroughly studied by medicine science, and became the starting point for rapid growth of using horseback riding for helping disabled people. Today, horseback riding is obligatory part of rehabilitation process in many countries. In United Kingdom, for example, it is officially supported by Queen.
Let's take closer look at how riding helps:
Physiological help
Horse body temperature is higher that human's. While moving, horse muscle warm up and massage rider's body, stimulating blood flow. For disabled person, it is also very important that horse moves imitate complex moves of a walking human. Forced to keep equilibrium, rider's body synchronizes many muscles.
Psychological help
Many disabled children have corrupted perception of their body and space around them. When a child improved his riding skills, he better perceived his personality. Having to control a horse, he learns to controls different situations and take decisions. Trust in his horse helps start trusting in world and people around him.
Emotional help
It is so evident - horses are so beautiful and kind! They look at disabled child with big clever eyes and make him happy! Also, horse is higher and bigger than a child, when a child rides a horse, he feels high, big, and healthy too!
The team of Tihomirovy Fund started experimental work with disabled children in 2000. Before starting, we invited doctors, specializing in physical training, who passed special courses in Moscow.
Most children who first came to us have never contacted horses before. And after one year of work, children and their families confirmed extreme improvement of their condition. Some have officially cleared their status of invalidity.
In 2001, 4 children with intellectual problems, who achieved big progress in riding, attended national sports competition for the first time. Soon, they received their first medals.
Today, our young disabled sportsmen have rich experience in national competitions with many gold and silver medals.
Not all children can join sports group: the trainings are much more extensive, almost daily before the competitions.
Our Fund regularly conducts "days of open doors", when any interested person can attend our training courses. We also conduct many horse shows, where our children are glad to demonstrate all their skills. Our specialists are instantly learning, and periodically attend skill-improvement courses. We also often correct and improve our working methods basing on results of our work.