For more than 20 years, Nadia Cavner served as the president of financial consulting firm Nadia Cavner Group Investment Services, where she was consistently recognized as a leader in her field. Currently, Nadia Cavner focuses her time and energy on volunteering and donating to various philanthropical causes, including Dynamic Strides Therapy.
Based in Republic, Missouri, Dynamic Strides Therapy is a nonprofit organization that provides holistic, specialized physical, occupational, and speech therapy to children with special needs, notwithstanding the family’s ability to afford such treatment. Dynamic Strides’ unique therapeutic approach takes place on a farm and incorporates the use of hippotherapy.
Hippotherapy is a form of therapy that uses horses as the mechanism of treatment. It is used in speech, occupational, and physical therapy. In hippotherapy, the pediatric patient is positioned on a horse and responds to the horse’s movement. The therapist directs the horse, and the child benefits through the sensory stimulation provided when the horse moves, gallops, and changes speeds.
Hippotherapy can help children with musculoskeletal challenges learn to orient their body in response to the movement. Similarly, hippotherapy helps with breath control, core strength, and trunk control, all of which benefit children who have language delays or problems vocalizing.
