Neurorehabilitation Through Hippotherapy of a Brain Stroke

Hippotherapy is an emerging specialized rehabilitation approach, performed on a specially trained horse via its movement at a walk by accredited health professionals (e.g., physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychomotor therapists, chiropractors ...). The horse is an excellent support for temporary or consolidated disabilities, providing key elements of recovery for impairment, activity limitation, and participation restriction. It is a dynamic activity where the amplitude of movement of the patient's body transmitted by the horse is similar to the human walking (micro-movements of postural muscles). Moreover, through multimodal inputs (sensory, exteroceptive, proprioceptive, interoceptive), hippotherapy has a direct action on the individual's motor capacities and cognitive abilities. The degree of change relying on neuroplasticity is linked both to the relevance of the activity and to the intensity and frequency of the elements that constitute it.

The neurorehabilitation therapy is an intervention from two or more disciplines (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, social work, psychology and other related disciplines, nursing) prescribed by a medical specialist (neurologist, neurosurgeon, oncologist, physiatrist). It is designed to be patient-centered, time-limited and functionally oriented, and aims to maximize activity and participation (social inclusion) using a biopsychosocial model.