Evaluation of the effects of hippotherapy on children and adults with motor disorders

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The aim of this paper is to systematize knowledge on the effects of hippotherapy on children and adults with motor disorders, with special focus on children with cerebral palsy, by review of available literature and critical analysis of the results shown in selected studies. As a result of the comprehensive search, a total of 44 studies were collected and examined, and 13 of them met the inclusion criteria, that is the hippotherapy as a form of treatment and people with motor disorders in the focus of research. The results indicate a positive impact of the hippotherapy program on functional abilities and on certain aspects of motor functioning of the research groups. However, many limitations and shortcomings of selected studies have been noted therefore questioning the shown evaluation results. For this reason, instead of making any final decision, it would be more important to explicate these issues in the further researches, mainly empirical, and to create a comprehensive ilustration on the bases of new information which would make hippotherapy less controversial form of treatment than it is today.