Animal-Assisted Therapy for Seniors
Mtn Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpacas regularly visit special-needs organizations and classrooms, hospitals, senior communities, and rehab facilities throughout Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA. Research has shown that animals help humans by acting as social bridges, reducing blood pressure, directing thoughts outward, and serving as strong motivators for accomplishing difficult tasks.
Our Therapy Llamas & Alpacas might take a walk with an adolescent struggling with difficult issues, or motivate a patient recovering from a stroke to reach farther, or calm a child with autism so that they can focus, and achieve new goals. By offering friendship and warm touch, our llamas help alleviate loneliness, lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Their presence brings a sense of normalcy to institutional settings.
Common spaces we visit are: long-term & skilled care facilities, assisted-living communities, residential treatment centers, physical rehabilitation centers, adult day cares, and hospice, just to name the most common. Our Therapeutic Visits are supported by those facilities that have budgets for our kinds of services, private donations, and the specialty events our animals are invited to through our Classy Camelids, LLC.
Current pricing for therapy visits starts at $150 for a 60-90 minute visit in facilities located up to 30 min from our home in Ridgefield, WA (for each additional 15 minutes of drive time, add $25). Occasionally, we can drive up to an hour off our farm. To avoid traffic issues that can cause undue stress for our animals, therapy visits occur between 10:30 AM (May-October) or 11 AM (November-April) and 2 PM.
Visits requested for later in the day mid-week or on weekends, or on holidays, are subject to the same rates as our special event requests.
**Due to our high demand, we allow up to 2 visits per senior community each year and welcome several farm field trips to get your community out in the fresh air with all 11 of our llamas and alpacas!
Booking goes LIVE each year on February 1st. We offer a limited number of visits annually for senior living communities to allow other groups with special needs to be able to receive therapy visits as well. We always allow field trips to the farm as a fun alternative to get residents out to enjoy being outside and meet our herd.