Benefits of hypotherapy in patients with multiple sclerosis

Narrative review

Abstract

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis is a demyelinating and neurodegenerative autoimmune disease. There are currently 2,800,000 people with multiple sclerosis, making it the most common non-traumatic disabling disease affecting young adults. In recent years, the use of hippotherapy in these patients has been proposed. Hippotherapy uses the movement of the horse to provide sensory feedback. The objective of this work is to carry out a review of the literature on the efficacy of hippotherapy in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Method: A review was carried out following the PRISMA regulations. The PubMed, Cinahl, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, Academic Search Complete, Lilacs, IBECS, CENTRAL, SciELO, and WOS databases were consulted. The Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool was pulled and the quality of evidence was assessed GRADE.

Results: Hippotherapy is effective in patients with multiple sclerosis. The sample was 179 patients from a total of six studies. The total number of sessions ranged from 10 to 36, with a frequency of once or twice a week, 30-minute sessions, and a total duration of therapy between 8 and 24 weeks.

Conclusions: Hippotherapy improves balance, activities of daily living, mobility, fatigue, spasticity, muscle strength, and quality of life in patients with multiple sclerosis.