My role specialization as a nursing practitioner that is focused on the alleviation of symptoms of anxiety disorders I am interested in researching the equine assisted therapy options for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. I chose this field because I am intrigued by the incorporation of horse-back riding as an alternative option to complement treatments such as medications, desensitization of eye movement and reprocessing, and cognitive processing techniques. I am interesting in exploring the alternative equine therapy because many veterans report reoccurrences of event flashbacks, insomnia, and painful emotions even after treatment thereby requiring exploration into other techniques such as horseback riding. Due to the symptom of low self-esteem prevalent amongst veterans that are not recovered from PTSD symptoms, the process of learning to control the horses behavior and their learning progress inspires confidence, challenges personal focus, and creates a new sense of responsibility.
I started off my research with conceptualizing my role specialization of anxiety disorders so as to lay down one concept at a time. I used key words to search on recent strategies that are applied on anxiety disorders such as PTSD which offers alternative interventions to veterans that show minimal response to conventional treatment options such as cognitive therapy processing methods. I combined the terms veteran, PTSD, nursing practitioners, and alternative therapies so as to narrow down my articles to recent information on the trending techniques that need further exploration. It was also interesting to note that equine assisted therapy is mostly applied to disabled individuals who are assisted on to and down from the horse which is A relevant solution for veterans that have experienced disability as a result of war related injuries.
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Literature Review
Through spelling out terms such as nursing practitioners in dealing with PTSD related interventions for veterans, I checked full text articles that discussed the level of research on new options for treatment. I came across therapeutic equine interventions which is a new field of intervention amongst nursing practitioners. The literature indicated minimal research on this topic but had valuable information on the application of riding techniques on PTSD symptoms in veterans with disability (Romaniuk, Evans, & Kidd, 2018). Few recent articles have focused on disabled veterans with PTSD using equine therapy to cope while focusing on raising self-esteem and isolation as one of the symptoms of the mental disorder.
The roots of equine therapy trace back to 1952 where health practitioners discovered the healing effects of equestrian events when a polio survivor won a silver medal in the Helsinki Winter Olympics. Therapeutic riding centers have existed since then but with minimal focus on veterans that are prone to suffer from PTSD related symptoms despite undergoing medications and cognitive processing treatments ( Peansukmanee, 2017). Therefore equine-facilitated psychotherapy and hippo-therapy strategies integrate the equine movement and transient muscle tone activity that is time-intensive and effective.
According to Murphy, Wilson, and Greenberg (2017), nursing practitioners often collaborate with physical therapists and professional horse behaviorists to provide the patient with equine-assisted experiential learning that creates occupational therapy solutions. The literature disputes the existence of extensive research on the feasibility of equine therapy because it is not a mainstream intervention that is universally adapted into the health industry. Therefore, the problem becomes the lack of sufficient provision of empirical and credible data that can support the use of equine therapy techniques to treat veteran patients that showcase PTSD symptoms and have disabilities as a result of injury. Therefore, I would like to develop a sensor technology that monitors the muscle reaction and cognitive activity of the veteran during the horse-back ride movement. My aim is to determine the magnitude of effect that changes the affective rhythm and muscle functionality.
References
Murphy, L., Wilson, J., & Greenberg, S. (2017). Equine-assisted experiential learning in occupational therapy education. Journal of Experiential Education, 40(4), 366–376. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053825917712732
Peansukmanee, S., Thawinchai, N., Khanproa, P., & Khaminluang, P. (2017). Feasibility study of inertial sensor technology on ponies for equine-assisted therapy (EAT). Kafkas Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi, 23(6), 871–878. https://doi.org/10.9775/kvfd.2017.17833
Romaniuk, M., Evans, J., & Kidd, C. (2018). Evaluation of an equine-assisted therapy program for veterans who identify as ‘wounded, injured or ill’ and their partners. PLoS ONE, 13(9), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203943
