Therapeutic Riding

Therapeutic riding uses all that the horse encompasses – riding, care, interaction – to assist the disabled individual in developing skills, both physical and emotional. At The Luci Center the focus is on ability. The combination of riders, horses, instructors and volunteers creates a team that works in a positive manner toward success. The Luci Center strives to give each student the opportunity to have a complete understanding of horsemanship. The ability to ride and care for the horse and equipment builds self-esteem and confidence, patience and discipline as well as body strength, balance and coordination.

Hippotherapy

The Luci Center is proud to offer hippotherapy to individuals with severe physical disabilities in addition to our regular therapeutic riding program.

Hippotherapy uses the movement of the horse as a treatment tool under the guidance of a licensed therapist (most often a physical or occupational therapist). In hippotherapy, the horse’s walk provides sensory input through movement which is variable, rhythmic and repetitive. The resultant movement responses in the rider are similar to the human movement patterns of the pelvis while walking. The variability of the horse’s gait enables the therapist to grade the degree of sensory input to the rider and then use this movement in combination with other therapeutic strategies to achieve results.

Providing both hippotherapy and therapeutic riding allows The Luci Center to identify the best match to client needs. The highest quality of instructors is required to provide the highest quality of therapeutic riding instruction or hippotherapy. For this reason, all Luci Center instructors are either certified Occupational/Physical Therapists or are certified instructors or instructors in training, working to be certified by the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association.