Horses helping kids with C.P.



Some children with cerebral palsy actually learn to walk while in the saddle of a horse, and often they reap other benefits such as normalized muscle tone.

Researchers at the Health Science Center want to find out why.

"Hippotherapy" is a specialty area of therapeutic horse riding, and has been used to help patients with neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy and neurological injuries caused by stroke and head trauma. Hippotherapy is provided by licensed physical, occupational or speech therapists who are trained in the technique.

Therapists ride with the patient, holding his or her head and other limbs if necessary for support, or they walk alongside the patient who can sit on the horse. "The rhythmic movement of the horse tends to reduce the abnormal movement patterns of children with cerebral palsy, allowing the children more freedom in purposeful, goal-directed movement," said Sandra Hubbard, MA, OTR, assistant professor of occupational therapy at the Health Science Center.

But how do children learn to walk? "The theory behind hippotherapy is that the pelvic movement of the rider on the horse is the same as the pelvic movement of human walking," said Theresa Nalty, MS, PT, NCS, assistant professor of physical therapy. "The horse's repetitive movement, transferred to the rider's pelvis, provides a three-dimensional pattern for walking."

Graduate-level physical therapy students at the Health Science Center, supervised by Nalty, are proposing to research the motion that occurs during hippotherapy and its effect on patients' balance, gait and muscle activity. Such a study would be done with a motion analysis device which could be used outdoors with the child on the horse.

"We hope to support popular use of hippotherapy with scientific proof of its effectiveness," said Nalty.


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