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Last updated on Wednesday, September 26, 2018
(BLOOMINGTON) - Join People & Animal Learning Services (PALS) on Saturday for their first annual Fall Festival. Bring the kids for pony rides and face painting.
Enjoy local vendors and food trucks and relax on the farm with the PALS staff and volunteers.
Attendance is free so stop out anytime between 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, September 29 at the facility at 7644 West Elwren Road in Bloomington.
For more information, visit www.palstherapy.org or call 812-336-2798.
PALS is a nonprofit therapeutic riding center. They provide therapeutic horseback riding and unmounted equine activities to people with disabilities, veterans, senior citizens, and at-risk youth. The therapeutic power of the horse can offer many physical, emotional and social benefits for a diverse population. As a PATH Intl. Premier-Accredited center, all programs are designed to be individualized and safe.
Clinical therapy can be hard. At PALS, programs are engaging and fun, allowing participants to experience a number of positive benefits such as increases in self-confidence, improvements in balance, and improved motor skills.
Since its beginning in 2000, PALS has provided over 13,000 therapeutic program and service hours, various educational programs, and camp opportunities designed to improve the lives of hundreds of children, adults, and seniors in the South Central Indiana community ages three and up.
As the only organization in south-central Indiana to have received a Premiere Accreditation distinction from the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (PATH Intl.), and the only Equine Assisted Activities and Therapy program in Monroe County or the surrounding vicinity, PALS has been instrumental in providing the highest quality EAA/T for clients from 11 counties across the state.
Benefits of Therapeutic Riding Sessions
Designed to positively contribute to the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional well being of individuals with disabilities, therapeutic riding uses the horse as a treatment tool to achieve goals in multiple domains of functioning. It is often theorized that the physical benefits of this adjunctive therapeutic approach are attributed to the horse's unique movement, which mobilizes the body in a manner that is similar to the natural human gait.
This unique movement, which provides an often dynamic environment, challenges the rider's posture, balance, and righting reactions requiring an increased level of body awareness and constant adjustment.
These movements, coupled with the warmth of the horse's body, are often credited for producing some of the significant physical improvements associated with participation in therapeutic riding activities related to balance, muscle symmetry, gross motor function, coordination, and posture.
Several studies have examined the psychological and psychosocial impacts of participation in a therapeutic horseback riding program finding significant improvements in areas such as one's sense of accomplishment, coping abilities, physical self-efficacy, self-confidence, and decreases in anger. Higher levels of social motivation and engagement, which have been shown to result from participation, may be related to the multi-sensory experience that occurs when mounted, and the associated perception of the physical stimulus as rewarding.
Subjective reports also noted physical improvements related to weight bearing, decreased hypertonicity, functional balance, trunk control, and pelvic mobility, as well as improvements in attention span and decreased fear, but were not considered statistically relevant in their respective studies. With such diverse benefits associated with participation, therapeutic riding has quickly become a therapeutic modality suitable for children and adults with multiple and wide-ranging physical, cognitive, emotional, and social challenges.
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