Balance Problems
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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 postintervention 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).
Conclusions from This Review
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.
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