Equine Physical Therapy – As With That of Humans but For Horses

Athletes have benefited from sports physical therapy; just so, equestrian sports horses have been better of from equine physical therapy. 

The practice is only a new one, yet for the care of our horses, it is remains important to learn what equine physical therapy can do apart from its limitations.

 All the same, the basic approaches of equine physical therapy are already that helpful in warming up and stretching the horse prior to competition and the application of cold and heat if such injury ever occurs – very much like sports warm-ups and injury prevention.

 Equine physical therapy developed from people who believe that horses’ physiological make up is also susceptible to the same injuries or disease that the bodies of human athletes are also prone to having. In fact, most practitioners of equine physical therapy are previous sports trainers and therapist or dual- specialists. 

The best equine physical therapists are those referred by veterinarians and those who are affiliates of the National Equine Therapists Association, an organization formed in 1987 aiming to improve the standards of equine physical therapy by advocating the establishment of a certification exam for equine therapists as just one of their major goals.

Other goals of equine therapists are parallel to those that the physical therapists seek to reach. They include pain reduction, restoring range of motion, restoring strength, and injury prevention.

 Equine physical therapy for horses employs a number of methods and techniques ranging from simple stretching exercises to use of sophisticated equipment. And as these therapeutic methods and techniques are useful in many ways, they are non-invasive in nature.

 However, once the horse’s condition becomes visibly severe, the on-going process must be reversed and rehabilitation ensues as a much more challenging task. This is how equine physical therapy could be that sophisticated. 

And while the athletic trainer or sports therapist of the human sports-med works adjunct with the sports physicians/orthopedics, the role of the equine horse therapist is also to work cooperatively with the veterinarian in the setting up and carrying out of conditioning and rehabilitation programs for sports horses.

 He administers first aid to the injured, utilizes protective devices or injury preventive equipment, and applies therapeutic equine modalities to ease the discomfort of injury and facilitate exercise.

 Horse stretching and heat and cold therapy are just among his specialties - ice, heat, water, electricity, light, sound, exercise, and stretching – very much like human sports therapy. After all, equestrian and horse-race are also sports very well- loved by humans. 

Physical Therapy and You

Physical therapy –The words ring out as something a masseuse would do, or for those of malicious thinking, something very kinky.

 Not a lot of people know what physical therapy is per se. Strictly speaking, physical therapy is a hands-on, direct form of professional patient care, bursting the bubble of green minded readers; physical therapy is not anything kinky.

 Far from it, for it is a form of rehabilitation for those with physical impediments and / or illnesses.

Physical therapy is most often used for stroke patients, although birth defects and post-operative problems are also common patients for physical therapists. 

  Stroke victims, more often than not, suffer physical harms that limit movement and other motor skills depending from the severity of the stroke.

 Paralysis is a common ailment suffered by stroke victims, albeit partial or half their bodies are rendered useless.

 It is these patients that physical therapists often encounter in their careers. Of course, physical therapists aren’t exclusive to stroke patients, victims of traffic mishaps for example, or other accidents are also common patients. 

Whatever the affliction, those people who need physical therapy are the ones who have lost physical abilities they consider normal or to be more specific, people who need therapeutic solutions for their physical maladies.

 Exercises, therapeutic massages, or if worse comes to worst, helping patients adapt to physical disabilities are but a few of what physical therapists offer to would-be patients.

 In other words, physical therapy is a branch of medicine that deals with patients who had physical repercussions, so to speak, from other medical conditions that debilitate people’s motor skills.

 Whether it be healing those effects or at least making patients get used to it, physical therapists help people live through or live with their physical complaints.

Physical therapy, a word that used to connote masseuses or kinky thoughts for green minded individuals, now is a word that depicts healing and rehabilitation.

 Naiveté has caused the words physical and therapy to mean something far removed from what it truly stands for.

 Never the mind, for physical therapy is here and it helps people recover, whether they are naive or not.

 If ever, God forbid, anything happens to you and you need physical rehabilitation for your affliction, thank God that physical therapy is available.

 Three cheers for physical therapy friends, without it, many a people would be rendered helpless or at least be hobbling down the path you tread.