The barn is a fantastic place for Shea Center clients to work on physical therapy exercises and activities! The horse provides clients balance challenges and engages the sensorimotor system.

Physical therapists at The Shea Center also provide clients with therapeutic activities from the moment they walk in the gate to the last wave goodbye. The outdoor environment creates many opportunities for engaging activities such as these: 

• Climbing the fence promotes coordination, lower and upper extremity strength, and motor planning
• Scooping poop builds upper extremity and core strength as well as coordination
• Jumping off bales of hay or shavings improves lower extremity power and soft landing control
• Walking on dressage rails improves balance
• Walking up and down hills or ramps increases muscle strength going up and muscle control going down
• Cutting carrots builds coordination while working on standing or sitting balance
• Stair training is done with a variety of stairs with and without hand rails and with different steepness
• Squeezing a water hose spray nozzle improves grip strength