Hippotherapy Case Study

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Kang, Jung, & Yu (2012) conducted a randomized control trial on 45 children with severe CP. The children were randomly assigned to either a hippotherapy group (HTG), physical therapy group (PTG), or control group (CON) based on their CP type. The PT and Hippotherapy sessions were put on by expert physical therapists in thirty minute sessions for eight weeks. The CON and HTG both received PT semiweekly. A force plate was used to measure the sitting balance concepts of velocity, center of pressure (COP,) and pathway. COP and velocity in the HTG group decreased significantly more than in the CON or PTG. This suggests that hippotherapy along with PT may be more beneficial than PT alone. The outcome showed that hippotherapy combined with traditional physical therapy, improved the sitting balance of children with severe CP, who could not walk independently more than traditional physical therapy alone (Kang, et el., 2012).The main limitation of this trial was the relatively small intervention time. …show more content…
These participants took part in one 50 minute hippotherapy session per week for ten weeks at a therapeutic riding center. The same physical therapist lead each session while using same horse for each participant. Quantitative outcome measurements for this study included: GMFM-88 total scores, GMFM-88 dimension B (sitting) scores, and the Sitting Assessment Scale (SAS). These scores were taken on participants before, after, and four weeks after the hippotherapy sessions. No significant improvements were made in the GMFM-88 or the SAS after the intervention. Small sample size, uncontrolled factors such as illness, children becoming too comfortable with examiners during measurement testing, and lack of clarity in the SAS test were all limitations when it came to this
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