Hippotherapy as alternative in the rehabilitation of the infant cerebral palsy

Abstract

Hippotherapy has been a used procedure along the story of medicine in diferent treatment disease and it constitutes a treatment option used for dedicated specialists to the disabled child attention. Hippotherapy is a therapeutical technique that is accomplished riding horseback whose objective is the rehabilitation of physical and affective symptoms. The horse influences through the movement the development of the posture, the equilibrium and tone, making easy the motor learning and inhibiting associated movement patterns. With the aim to demonstrate the use of hippotherapy as an alternative in the cerebral palsy treatment, a test study with 20 patients, with spastic and athetosic cerebral palsy was accomplished. An initial and quarterly evaluation was carried out during 2012 to measure the patients evolution through the application of tests such as the Barthel index, Tinetti's scale and the assisted therapy helped with horse, obtaining the patients progressive improvement along the treatment. This technical therapeutics's goodnesses were demonstrated as an alternative in the infant cerebral palsy's treatment.