Poor Walking Ability
Improvements in Gait In one interview series, both parents and the children stated that walking ability seemed to be improved after hippotherapy (Lemke et al. 2014). They also stated that their leg flexibility used during non-walking activities improved. This shows that even non-ambulatory patients may gain leg flexibility through the use of hippotherapy. While not a numerical measure of improvement, these comments made during the interviews do provide evidence that at least some people are noticing gait improvement after hippotherapy treatment. In fact, these comments made are supported by more numerical and scientific data collected in a study by Kwon and others (2011). In this study, children with bilateral cerebral …show more content…
While this is not a quantitative perspective, it does provide insight into the day-to-day lives of the children and how well hippotherapy helps their endurance in their overall lives. This is not something that a therapist who only spends a few hours a week with the child can easily perceive. This is especially true when therapy itself can prove extremely tiring for the children, possibly causing the therapist to perceive the child’s endurance as much lower than it is in everyday …show more content…
In this case, poor endurance could be caused by a number of factors with their own excluding criteria. Some of the physical factors that come to mind when thinking of poor endurance are respiratory issues, cardiac issues, and general fatigue caused by other diseases or medications.
With respiratory issues in children, the primary excluding factor would be a severe respiratory problem that becomes worse when exposed to dust or dirt as many hippotherapy treatments are conducted in arenas with dirt floors and may exacerbate the breathing difficulties. Depending on the type of condition, weather may also need to be taken into account as some respiratory issues worsen with increased or decreased humidity or temperature. In addition, many facilities do not like to provide hippotherapy for those requiring the use of supplemental oxygen, although there are some facilities that do (PATHI,
Improvements in Gait In one interview series, both parents and the children stated that walking ability seemed to be improved after hippotherapy (Lemke et al. 2014). They also stated that their leg flexibility used during non-walking activities improved. This shows that even non-ambulatory patients may gain leg flexibility through the use of hippotherapy. While not a numerical measure of improvement, these comments made during the interviews do provide evidence that at least some people are noticing gait improvement after hippotherapy treatment. In fact, these comments made are supported by more numerical and scientific data collected in a study by Kwon and others (2011). In this study, children with bilateral cerebral …show more content…
While this is not a quantitative perspective, it does provide insight into the day-to-day lives of the children and how well hippotherapy helps their endurance in their overall lives. This is not something that a therapist who only spends a few hours a week with the child can easily perceive. This is especially true when therapy itself can prove extremely tiring for the children, possibly causing the therapist to perceive the child’s endurance as much lower than it is in everyday …show more content…
In this case, poor endurance could be caused by a number of factors with their own excluding criteria. Some of the physical factors that come to mind when thinking of poor endurance are respiratory issues, cardiac issues, and general fatigue caused by other diseases or medications.
With respiratory issues in children, the primary excluding factor would be a severe respiratory problem that becomes worse when exposed to dust or dirt as many hippotherapy treatments are conducted in arenas with dirt floors and may exacerbate the breathing difficulties. Depending on the type of condition, weather may also need to be taken into account as some respiratory issues worsen with increased or decreased humidity or temperature. In addition, many facilities do not like to provide hippotherapy for those requiring the use of supplemental oxygen, although there are some facilities that do (PATHI,