Effects of hippotherapy on children with cerebral palsy: systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: The most important goal of hippotherapy is to improve function, gait, and balance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of hippotherapy on function, gait, and balance of children with cerebral palsy (CP). Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: We've searched the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library CENTRAL databases for English experimental studies published up until September 2018. To analyze the effects of hippotherapy on the function, gait, and balance of children with cerebral palsy, the systematic review and meta-analysis were performed on Patient/Participants/Population Problem, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome with Timing, Setting Study Design. Papers retrieved from the database were removed from the literature management database. Methodological quality evaluation was evaluated using Cochrane's risk of bias. Data was analyzed using the Revman 5.3 program of the Cochrane library. Results: In this study, we found that the effect size of hippotherapy, denoted as d, was −3.82, and that hippotherapy had the most effect on gait, but no statistical significant difference was observed. We also found no significant difference in function and balance after hippotherapy. It was found from the funnel plot that there was no publication bias as the plot was symmetrically distributed around the dotted line. Conclusions: There are many unclear studies and a lack of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in this research area. More RCTs on the effects of hippotherapy on children with CP should be conducted in the future.

Intervenciones asistidas con animales en las ciencias del deporte: una propuesta de inclusión entre las actividades físicas en el medio natural.

“…Tal y como se muestra en la Tabla 1, la mayoría de los artículos encontrados estaban centrados en evaluar los efectos de las intervenciones asistidas con caballos (87,5%) (Anguita Córdova et al, 2019;Anttila et al, 2008;Daniel Collado-Mateo et al, 2020;De Guindos-Sanchez et al, 2020;De Miguel et al, 2018;Granados & Agís, 2011;Hilliere et al, 2018;Kim & Lee, 2020;Marquez et al, 2020;Martín-Valero et al, 2018;Prieto et al, 2020;Rigby & Grandjean, 2016;Selby & Smith-Osborne, 2013;Stergiou et al, 2017;Stern & Chur-Hansen, 2019;White-Lewis et al, 2017;Wood & Fields;Zadnikar & Kastrin, 2011), con solo dos revisiones de intervenciones asistidas con perros (Hallyburton & Hinton, 2017;Polking et al, 2017) y una revisión que incluía tanto perros como caballos (Lasa et al, 2015). En relación a los participantes, la mayoría de las revisiones hacían referencia a numerosas condiciones de salud (Anguita Córdova et al, 2019;Lasa et al, 2015;Rigby & Grandjean, 2016;Selby & Smith-Osborne, 2013;Stergiou et al, 2017;Stern & Chur-Hansen, 2019;White-Lewis et al, 2017;Wood & Fields).…”

“…En relación a los participantes, la mayoría de las revisiones hacían referencia a numerosas condiciones de salud (Anguita Córdova et al, 2019;Lasa et al, 2015;Rigby & Grandjean, 2016;Selby & Smith-Osborne, 2013;Stergiou et al, 2017;Stern & Chur-Hansen, 2019;White-Lewis et al, 2017;Wood & Fields). Sin embargo, de manera más específica 5 revisiones estaban enfocadas únicamente a la evaluación de los efectos en niños con parálisis cerebral (Anttila et al, 2008;De Guindos-Sanchez et al, 2020;Kim & Lee, 2020;Martín-Valero et al, 2018;Zadnikar & Kastrin, 2011); y el resto de revisiones, se centraban en poblaciones como esclerosis múltiple (C. establecen 10 factores que consideran universales para el ámbito educativo. Estos criterios que las actividades debería cumplir son: 1) el movimiento como vehículo de interacción, 2) la naturaleza como espacio de acción, 3) el fin ecológico, 4) el reto o aventura, 5) la incertidumbre (de entorno y personas), 6) el riesgo, 7) la generación de sensaciones, 8) el carácter lúdico, 9) la generación de experiencias y 10) la promoción del desarrollo personal y social (Caballero Blanco et al, 2018).…”

Effectiveness of animal-assisted activities and therapies for autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Thus, the primary focus of therapeutic interventions for ASD is to ameliorate the core symptoms and to augment the patients’ engagement in social activities. Existing non-pharmacological approaches, such as probiotic treatments, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) ( 9 ), mindfulness therapy, music therapy ( 10 ), and aerobic and motor skills exercises ( 11 , 12 ), have yielded modest improvements in these core symptoms ( 13 ).…”

Adaptive Climbing for Functional Motor Assessment of Children with Cerebral Palsy - a Preliminary Study

“…There is, as a consequence, a growing interest in alternative activities that may complement and partly replace classical rehabilitation, while integrating more easily in the child's social life. Successful examples are hippotherapy and music therapy, which were found to be successful in improving the gait, coordination, and sensorimotion skills 12,13 , and adapted sports 14,15 .…”