The Care Plus Group (CPG) Charitable Trust has recently supported a young girl to access horse riding lessons to help improve her mobility. Alivia is 4 years old and is quadriplegic, has dystonia, global development delay, cerebral palsy and is autistic and deaf. Her consultant in Leeds advised Alivia’s mum that a way to improve her core stability to enable her ability to walk would be to undertake a course of lessons in horse riding. This is due to the movement of riding a horse building the core muscle which would in turn strengthen her ability to balance and hence walk. The CPG Charitable Trust funded Alivia to have nine 1:1 lessons at Cottagers Plot Equestrian. During the sessions, Alivia built her core muscles and there was a noticeable difference in her range of movement and ability to walk. Alivia’s mum said: “Since Alivia has been attending horse riding lessons that the CPG Charitable Trust provided, her posture whilst riding has become a lot more stable and she is able to hold a straight posture for around five minutes until she needs prompting and assistance. Alivia loves going horse riding and we are hoping to continue this. Thank you so much to Lisa and the CPG Charitable Trust.” Lisa Revell, Trustee of the CPG Charitable Trust said:
“It was a privilege for the charity to not only fund the sessions but for me to watch Alivia ride, I attended her first session where she clearly was nervous and required holding throughout the lesson and by the end of the session she was riding unaided with a big smile on her face. Over the 3 months the regular sessions have strengthened her muscles enough to not only stand unaided for longer but to improve her stability. I am pleased we were able to help.”