Motorcycle therapy for autistic people? Public funds to be allocated «to activities that are not recognized by the Higher Institute of Health»?
The Government’s enthusiasm is curbed by the families that are part of the National Association of Parents of People with Autism. L’Swan expresses “perplexity and bewilderment” about the law on motor therapy approved by the Chamber in recent days and which will have to be voted on in the Senate. “This does not seem to us to be the most urgent need to guarantee our children the rights and necessary care”, reads a note from the association. “We don’t need motorbikes in the lane – the family members underline – but that the essential levels of assistance are guaranteed, compliance with the guidelines recognized by scientific research and not with ‘pastime’ laws”.
INSIGHTS
«In the text – continues Angsa – it says that motor therapy will have to be introduced within 6 months but with budget ‘invariance’. The money must be found among the already scarce amounts allocated for healthcare. Resources will therefore have to be cut from essential services to make room for ‘freestyle motocross therapy’, a treatment modality that has no scientific validation. This way you get only one result”, warns the association: “Increasing confusion about what is priority and useful and what is not”.
And again: «The basis of this law provision is a questionnaire, that is, there are 50 people questioned who said that they had benefited from motor therapy. And after this questionnaire, a bill was presented by some parliamentarians, without the Higher Institute of Health, which is the only institute that should give scientific validation to the interventions implemented, giving a favorable opinion. I think this is a rather worrying precedent.” Supporting him in the Chamber is Italia Viva MP Davide Faraone, who thus motivates his group’s no to the bill to promote ‘motorcycle therapy’, signed by the League. It’s fine if you consider it “a playful intervention”, adds the deputy, but it cannot be “a scientific-health initiative”.
«Under what scientific principles are we deciding that we are taking away resources? – asks Faraone – We have no resources to finance speech therapy centres, nor to finance psychomotor skills, nor to finance hospital interventions for people with disabilities who have specific needs. We don’t have resources for all this and we ask to transfer them for motor therapy, which we don’t know at all what kind of effects it can have on patients? “I believe that this Parliament is making a mistake in treating such delicate issues with superficiality, that it is making a mistake in putting them on the agenda with this approximation and with this superficiality”, he declares. «On these issues – states Faraone – there are no political colours, but it’s not like if there is a party colleague who says ‘I have a friend who told me that motor therapy works’ a bill is presented and it is said which is fine: we are talking about delicate things.” «Dispersing resources for initiatives like this is truly a shame, it’s incredible», concludes the parliamentarian.
What is motor therapy
It was launched by Vanni Oddera, 43 years old, freestyle motocross champion and is based on motorbike experiences “outdoors and inside hospitals (electric motorbikes, ed.) dedicated to children, teenagers and adults with disabilities or with serious pathologies”. Supporters of “motorcycle psychomotor skills” argue that patients, riding together with expert riders, “develop physical, emotional, cognitive and social skills capable of increasing the sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency”.
Minister Locatelli
«I express satisfaction for the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the proposal for the recognition of Mototherapy presented by the Honorable Panizzut. This is an important signal of change, which breaks through the many rigidities of the healthcare system.” This was stated by the Minister for Disabilities Alessandra Locatelli. «I am convinced – she adds – that every person, especially children with complex and degenerative pathologies, in the most difficult moments of treatment and during hospital stays have the right to experience positive emotions, and can face even the most dramatic situations with hope. and the relief that activities such as motor therapy and others are able to offer.” «I have often participated in Vanni Oddera’s events, whom I thank for having first dedicated his time and passion to this precious opportunity, awaited and desired by thousands of people and families throughout Italy – concludes Locatelli -, I saw the joy, emotion, energy in the eyes of many children, young people and their families and this means that the path is the right one. Happiness is a right for everyone.”
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