Sherman Oaks, Studio City & Surrounding Areas (Change Location)

May 31, 2023

Visiting Horse Stables Offers Health Benefits for Elders in Care

Written By: Tom Crowe
home instead caregiver providing senior care services

Visiting horses can help with many challenges faced in elderly care. Studio City, CA seniors have a number of therapeutic horsemanship or horse visiting options nearby. With a little help, they can take advantage of the benefits that come from this activity.

Chronic health conditions may be the result of inactivity, or they may be made worse through inactivity. Excellent senior care services in Studio City, CA can help find ways to stay active. One excellent way is visiting a horse stable, and, if appropriate, perhaps even riding one.

Such a suggestion may sound odd, especially if a person has never been around horses before. But working with horses and petting them can be a new and helpful activity at any age. Even those who face senior health conditions can give it a go, with the proper guidance.

This is where finding the right stable or training center become crucial. The licensed, trained, bonded, compassionate CAREGivers of Home Instead can help make that determination. They offer aging and adult services in Studio City, CA to match the client’s needs. Then they stand ready to help provide senior day care, rides for seniors in Studio City, CA and the surrounding area, and whatever else is needed.

Part of that help can be finding a riding stable nearby that can provide the most appropriate therapeutic horsemanship and horse visiting program.

Being around horses offers a number of surprising health benefits, including for the aging and elderly.

Among the health benefits, one main one is just being outside, getting fresh air, and basking in the sunlight. That means more Vitamin D, which is always a good thing.

Another health benefit just comes from being near the horses. There’s just something about a calm, experienced horse that can bring a smile to the face, a gentleness to the touch, and a softness to the heart. At a good therapeutic stable, the experts will help match you with a horse that will be a good companion for visits, petting, or even riding. Then while petting the horse’s neck, feeding it and feeling its warm breath on your hand, and perhaps brushing its flanks and mane, the horse will help lower the blood pressure and calm the mind just by being there.

If horseback riding is a safe possibility, then it brings another great health benefit: working muscles that are not typically exercised. Muscle loss from aging can bring a whole range of difficulties, but activities like horseback riding safely can help to maintain, and even strengthen, some of those muscles that are neglected by walking and other more conventional exercises.

Studies have shown that being near horses, working with them, and a gentle ride now and then has that effect on the person.

So talk with the CAREGivers of Home Instead to set up your virtual or in-home assessment, so they can help find opportunities like therapeutic horseback riding. Call 818-988-6848 to talk to Home Instead today!

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