[2015/8/17] Therapy while riding horse?

Written by Pilwon Hur (2015/8/17)

Did you know that there is a type of therapy while riding a horse? It is called hippotherapy or equine therapy. Children with cerebral palsy or veterans with PTSD can also benefit from this therapy. They can make better balance, gait performance, and become more confident. What is more interesting is that they will learn how to interact with the 1200 lb animal while riding. They will respond to the horse's movement, and the horse sometimes responds to the rider's movement.

Now, what is lacking is that we don't know why it works. So, we made customized wireless sensors that can track the movements of horse and the rider real time. The sensor has MEMS-based IMU to track movement of the bodies, XBee to wireless communicate over a mile, and an arduino that controls and manages IMU and XBee.

Last Aug 17, Han and Pilwon made a trip to round rock to do the feasibility test. The facility is called R.O.C.K., RIDE ON CENTER FOR KIDS. Nancy and Duane organized this meeting and Priscilla rode the horse all day long for us to collect the data. We collected huge amount of data. Han and other students are analyzing the data now. Also, we are reducing the size of the sensors, and increasing the sample rate of wireless data collection.