Use of Music Therapy in Aiding the Relaxation of Geriatric Horses.

The study focused on understanding the impact of music therapy on the emotional excitability of old horses, which was evaluated based on their heart rate and heart rate variability. The results showed that exposure to relaxing music had a short-term positive effect on the horses but didn’t have lasting impacts after continuous application over weeks.

Study Objective and Methodology

• The main aim of this research was to study the effects of music therapy on geriatric or elderly horses’ excitability and relaxation, using their heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) as indicators.
• 20 warmblood geriatric horses of 20 years or older were chosen for the study. These were kept in two similar stables in the same location.
• The horses in stable No.1 formed the experimental group that was exposed to music therapy, while those in stable No. 2 were the control group and didn’t receive music therapy.
• The music therapy applied involved playing relaxing new age music to the horses in the experiment group using a specialized sound system (MyPetSpeaker), for a duration of 28 days.

Measurement and Findings

• The HR and HRV were used to measure the horses’ emotional excitability both from the experimental and control group.
• The measurements were recorded at 7-day intervals, in the morning when the horses were at rest, starting from the day the experiment began. Four recordings in total were obtained over the period of the experiment.
• The findings from the measurements showed a positive effect of the music on the relaxation of the horses in the experimental group. These effects started showing a week after the experiment started and remained for 1-2 weeks.

Conclusion

• Despite the short-term positive effects on the horses’ relaxation, the study found that the impact disappeared after 2-3 weeks of continued music therapy.
• Therefore, it suggests that while music therapy can have immediate soothing impacts on the emotional excitability of geriatric horses, it does not provide long-term significant benefits.