Introduction: Hippotherapy is one of the supportive therapies for the treatment of children with cerebral palsy, which includes rhythmic movement, mobilization of the joints, stimulation of the straightening and equilibrium reactions, symmetry of posture and movement and is supposed to regulate muscle tone. Purpose: The purpose was to determine the effects of 8-week hippotherapy on muscle tone and muscle performance of the lower limbs, walking and range of motion in the hip and knee joint of a patient with cerebral palsy. Methods: An 11-year-old girl diagnosed with cerebral palsy with developmental delay and spastic diparesis was included in a 30-minute hippotherapy once a week. In the first phase of the measurements, before and after 8 weeks of on-going hippotherapy, we used the following tests were used: the passive range of motion in the hip and knee joint, the V-sit reach flexibility test, the L-test, the 10-metre walk test, the 5 times sit to stand test and the assessment of the muscle tone of lower limbs according to the Ashworth scale. The second phase of the measurements took place immediately before and after each hippotherapy and included the V-sit reach flexibility test and the L-test. Results: The greatest progress can be seen in the measurements of the passive range of motion in the hip and knee joint, where the range of motion in almost all directions was normalized. Significant progress can be seen in the 10-metre walk test (average 0.14 m/s faster at relaxed walking and 0.3 m/s faster at fast walking). Discussion and conclusion: According to the results, we can assume that the 8-week hippotherapy influenced the improvement of the range of motion in the hip and knee joint, walking velocity and mobility of a girl with cerebral palsy.
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