Focus

Saddle up. It's time for your therapy

By Lara Farrar (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-03 07:50

Audrey Baronet gets her weekly therapy on Snipper, accompanied by Priscilla Lightsey (second from right) and two volunteers.

Horse riding has been accepted as a highly good treatment for some disabilities

Emily and Audrey Baronet are twins. They share the same curly blonde hair, ocean blue eyes and round faces. They also share mild cerebral palsy, a disability that makes it difficult for the girls to walk, play and perform other activities in their daily lives.

To try to improve their coordination, their balance and their motor skills, the Baronet twins visit Priscilla Lightsey, a Texan who lives with her family in Beijing, and Snipper, a horse that lives on a quiet, tree-covered farm on the outskirts of Beijing.

Every Friday, Emily and Audrey travel to the farm for their weekly riding therapy sessions with Lightsey and Snipper.

While one rides the dark brown gelding around the arena for 30 minutes or so, the other patiently waits her turn.

Placing a disabled child on the back of a horse may seem dangerous to some, yet many therapists in the West see hippotherapy, or therapeutic riding, as a highly effective treatment for individuals suffering from a range of physical and emotional disabilities, including cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, paraplegia and autism.

Lightsey, a physical therapist and licensed equine therapy instructor, is working to popularize the treatment in China. Last year, she founded Horses Offering People Enrichment, or HOPE, one of the few, if not only, hippotherapy programs in the country.

In the US, the popularity of therapeutic riding has grown steadily since the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA) was founded in Denver, Colorado, in 1969.

Across the US, there are now hundreds of centers that use horses to treat a range of physical and mental disabilities. Lightsey, a lifelong horse lover, is registered with the American Hippotherapy Association and is a NARHA certified therapist.

The theory behind equine therapy is that the rhythmic, repetitive gait of a horse enables those with movement dysfunction to achieve greater balance, posture and coordination. Or, in the words of Lightsey: "If you have a child in a wheelchair, the child will always be on one plane going straight. On a horse, the child's body moves in ways he or she is not used to experiencing. There's also a bond with the horse that I can't duplicate in a clinic.

"I really feel strongly about how beneficial this therapy is on multiple levels."

So far, Lightsey's program in Beijing is small at best. Operating on a shoestring budget, any money she makes (which is almost none) goes toward leasing and caring for Snipper. Lightsey's church donated seed money to help her buy equipment and train the horse.

Several volunteers join her on Fridays to walk alongside Snipper while Lightsey guides her patients through a series of movements atop the horse: sitting in a variety of positions, turning in different directions, holding their hands up in the air or out to the side - every exercise is intended to help a child heal, or at least move one step closer to living normal lives.

Aside from the Baronet twins, Lightsey has been working with disabled Chinese children from orphanages such as the Bethel Foster Home in Beijing. Her goal, she says, is to bring more children from foster homes to HOPE.

It is a challenging task. Lightsey has to overcome language barriers as well as cultural ones.

While more Chinese are riding horses for sport and leisure, the notion of using a horse for therapeutic purposes is a new concept in China.

"In China, it is a struggle to educate," Lightsey said. "This is more than just pony rides. It is all an uphill battle."

An analysis of mental health issues in four provinces published in June in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated that more than 90 percent of the 173 million Chinese adults believed to suffer from mental problems never receive professional help.

It is a struggle, however, that Lightsey says is ultimately worth it, citing the autistic boy, an orphan, who uttered some of his first words while riding Snipper for the first time.

"He wasn't on that horse for 15 minutes," Lightsey said. "He just connected with the horse."