Balance Problems

  • Hippotherapy- a intervention to habilitate balance deficits in children with movement disorders: a clinical trial

    Silkwood-Sherer, D., Killian, C., Long, T., & Martin K. 
    Physical Therapy (2012)

    Description
    The purposes of this study were to assess the effectiveness of hippotherapy for the management of postural instability in children with mild to moderate balance problems and to determine whether there is a correlation between balance and function.

    Sixteen children (9 boys and 7 girls) who were 5 to 16 years of age and had documented balance problems participated in this study. Intervention consisted of 45-minute hippotherapy sessions twice per week for 6 weeks. Two baseline assessments and 1 post intervention assessment of balance, as measured with the Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS), and of function, as measured with the Activities Scale for Kids-Performance (ASKp), were performed.

    Results 
    With the Friedman analysis of variance, the PBS and the ASKp were found to be statistically significant across all measurements (P<.0001 for both measures). Post hoc analysis revealed a statistical difference between baseline and postintervention measures (P≤.017). This degree of difference resulted in large effect sizes for PBS (d=1.59) and ASKp (d=1.51) scores after hippotherapy. A Spearman rho correlation of .700 indicated a statistical association between PBS and ASKp postintervention scores (P=.003). There was no correlation between the change in PBS scores and the change in ASKp scores (r(s)=.13, P>.05).

    Conclusion
    Hippotherapy appears to be a viable treatment strategy for improving balance and functional performance of daily life skills in children with mild to moderate balance problems. 

  • Physical Therapist

  • USA

  • HPOT

  • Cohort repeated-measures design

  • 16 children

  • 5-16 years

  • Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS) and Activities Scale for Kids—Performance (ASKp)

  • Balance, postural stability, and function

  • 45-minute hippotherapy sessions twice per week for 6 weeks

  • Silkwood-Sherer, D. J., Killian, C. B., Long, T. M., & Martin, K. S. (2012). Hippotherapy--an intervention to habilitate balance deficits in children with movement disorders: a clinical trial. Physical therapy, 92(5), 707–717. https://doi.org/10.2522/ptj.20110081