Effect of hippotherapy on older balance: a systematic review with methanalysis

The regular practice of physical exercises of diff erent natures has been widely recommended for the elderly population, due to the innumerable benefi ts related to functional and cognitive capacity in this stage of life, increasing the longevity with functional independence.The eff ects hippotherapy on the improvement of postural balance are being increasingly studied in diff erent populations, however, studies on these eff ects in the elderly are recent. Given the importance of improving evidence-based practice, the interest in performing a rigorous synthesis of all queries related to the eff ect of hippotherapy on balance postural. This review followed the reporting items Preferred recommendations for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) And registered in an international database of systematic reviews (PROSPERO). Were selected articles from databases BIREME, SCIELO, MEDLINE CINAHAL, EBSCHOST e ISI, published Portuguese and English. The key words used were: hippotherapy, therapeutic riding, postural balance and elderly, present in the title or summary of articles. Were used the PEDro scale for methodological evaluation of the articles included in the review. It identifi ed 20 studies; 4 met the inclusion criteria. Studies on the eff ects of hippotherapy in older adults homogeneity (I2 = 0 %) and a signifi cant improvement (p = 0.001) in the functional capacity of the elderly. Although the studies indicate that hippotherapy is benefi cial for the improvement of postural balance, only 4 studies were analyzed, and there is a need for research that relates these variables to the elderly population....(AU)