PLEASONTON, Calif. — For the first time in two years, 83-year-old Kim Hyunh said, she walked without her walker.
With two people beside her and a cane for support, the Dublin resident made her way around Three Horse Farms in Pleasanton during a recent visit with members of Connected Horse, an organization that uses interactions with horses to support older adults and people living with dementia.
“Today was the first day without my walker,” Hyunh said. “My body feels good.”
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Two years earlier, Hyunh had fallen and injured her back and leg. Since then, she had relied on a walker to get around. But on this warm fall day, she was on her feet, petting the white mares that pranced around the stable.
Hyunh was one of six participants from Centers for Elders’ Independence who arrived by bus to spend time with horses through a partnership the organizations launched in July, which gives older adults — including those experiencing memory loss and other health challenges — support outside of a traditional medical setting.
Paula Hertel, co-founder of Connected Horse, said the program gives participants an opportunity to slow down, be present and connect with horses.
Sessions begin with participants gathering in a circle before taking a sensory walk. Their first encounter with the horses happens from the other side of a fence.
“People start to relax,” Hertel said, watching a participant laugh as the horses neighed.
Participants then enter the arena, where they greet and brush the horses. Hertel said the activities are designed to encourage mindfulness in a nonclinical setting.
“Your brain works better when you’re calm, regardless of disease or not,” Hertel said.
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Lorissa Wayne has watched that process play out during her three years volunteering with Connected Horse. Participants sometimes arrive unsure, agitated or unable to focus, she said. Once they get around the horses, they become more at ease.
“You physically see them relax,” Wayne said. “Being in the moment and watching the transformation — it’s rewarding to watch them go through that.”
Wayne, a Pleasanton resident and longtime horse owner, found Connected Horse while looking for ways to spend more time around the animals. After three years with the organization, Wayne now helps train newer volunteers.
“It’s rewarding for them and me,” she said.
Connected Horse’s founders have also worked with researchers at UC Davis to investigate whether the benefits participants and caregivers describe can be measured scientifically. Sarah E. Tomaszewski Farias, a professor at UC Davis who studies cognitive aging, helped design a pilot study of the program after Connected Horse approached the university.
“It’s important to have scientific evidence for programs aimed at improving lives,” Farias said.
Researchers implemented the program at an equine center in Davis and tested participants and their caregivers before and after the intervention. They examined such factors as anxiety, sleep and the sense of connection between a person living with dementia and their caregiver.
The results showed improvements, particularly among caregivers, Farias said.
That distinction is important. Measuring changes in mood and emotional well-being among people with cognitive impairment can be difficult, Farias said. That was one reason researchers were better able to identify changes among caregivers. But she said benefits for caregivers themselves are also meaningful, as caring for someone with dementia can contribute to social isolation and mental health challenges.
The study also left questions unanswered.
Farias said researchers would ideally have incorporated more behavioral observations of participants over time — tracking changes such as whether participants smiled more or appeared more engaged following the intervention.
Future research could follow participants for longer periods and examine whether there is a “dose response,” Farias said — in other words, whether people who participate more frequently experience greater benefits.
She said programs involving horses may offer something that can be difficult for people living with dementia to find elsewhere: a supportive environment where they can interact without judgment.
“There’s still a lot of stigma around dementia,” Farias said. That stigma can become a barrier to socializing, which is important for brain health, she said.
For Hyunh, what mattered that afternoon was simpler.
She moved to the United States in 1998 and lived in Oakland for 19 years before settling in Dublin, where she now lives with her son. She hopes to move back to Vietnam soon, she said. But before that, she’d like to make a special trip.
“Before I go, I would like to come back here to see the horses one more time,” she said.
