Horses are big and strong, but often quiet, which may comfort people with Alzheimer’s diseaseHalfpoint/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Spending time with horses seems to make people with Alzheimer’s disease more sociable and improves their mood.
“We’re seeing some really promising results with bringing Alzheimer’s patients into nature with horses,” says Léa Badin at the University of Tours in France.
Badin and her colleagues enrolled 34 people with Alzheimer’s – 30 women and four men, aged between 80 and 98, living in four French nursing homes – to participate in either equine-assisted therapy or music therapy, an established…