Abstract
Objectives:
To determine the effects of an equine-assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) program on cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in children with cerebral palsy (CP).
Design:
An evaluator-blinded, parallel, two-arm, randomized controlled clinical trial with 1:1 randomization.
Settings/Location:
A tertiary university hospital and a local arena.
Subjects:
Forty-six children with CP (24 boys and 22 girls) classified as Gross Motor Function Classification System levels I, II, or III were included.
Interventions:
The EAAT program was conducted for 40 min twice a week for 16 weeks (32 lessons).
Outcome measures:
Clinical global impression scales, motor capacity, cardiopulmonary fitness, and habitual physical activity was measured on both groups before and after the 16-week period.
Results:
Changes in the Clinical Global Impression–Severity scale and Clinical Global Impression–Improvement scale scores were not different between the groups after the intervention. Analysis of covariance revealed statistically significant differences in Gross Motor Function Measure 66 (GMFM 66) (p < 0.05) and Pediatric Balance Scale (p < 0.001) in motor capacity and resting heart rate (HRrest) (p < 0.001) in CRF, between the EAAT group and the control group. Subgroup analysis using multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the GMFM 66 changes had a statistically significant effect on the HRrest changes in the EAAT group (p < 0.05).
Conclusions:
The present study showed decreased HRrest in children with CP after completing the 16-week EAAT program. This improvement was explained by the improvement of GMFM 66 in the EAAT group. Thus, EAAT may be among the endurance training programs that could be offered to children with CP to improve their CRF.
Clinical Trial Registration number: NCT03870893.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
