Effect of hippotherapy on postural balance in women with Machado Joseph Disease

Abstract

© 2015 Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo. All rights reserved. Introduction. Machado Joseph Disease (MJD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that manifests with progressive cerebellar dysfunctions. Intervention strategies aimed at improving functional capacity. Objective. To investigate the effects of hippotherapy on postural balance of three women (47.67±1.15 years) with MJD. Method. Stabilometric data were acquired for 15 seconds at a frequency of 100 Hz twenty hippotherapy sessions were conducted in a range of ten weeks. During this period the subjects were subjected to periodic reviews, performed immediately before and after the sessions 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. A confirmatory test was performed thirty days following the end of the intervention period. Results. The immediate effect measured at the beginning and end of each session on five different days failed to identify significant changes in body movements in any of the subjects. The three subjects showed different responses to treatment. Conclusions. The intervention with hippotherapy was not able to make consistent changes in postural balance in women with JDM studied.