Effects of equine therapy on postural balance, gait, performance and functional mobility and quality of life in healthy people and people with disability

INTERVENTION: C10.228.140.300.775 E02.760.169.063.500.083.500 There will be 16 sessions of equine therapy of 30 minutes, twice a week for the experimental group and the frequency of once a week for the control group. The horse should have a height of approximately 1.50cm and 450kg approximately. The horse will be saddled with saddle and stirrup. The control group will not do any intervention. 25 subjects will be allocated to the experimental group and 25 subjects to the control group. CONDITION: C10.228.140.300.775 G00‐G99 The subjects of this study people will be both sexes, from the age of five, with no age limit, with cerebral palsy, stroke, Parkinson's, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, cerebellar ataxias or Down's syndrome ; C10.228.140.300.775 PRIMARY OUTCOME: We expect the improvement of postural balance, gait, performance and; mobility of volunteers after 16 sessions of hippotherapy. SECONDARY OUTCOME: We hope to improve the quality of life of volunteers after 16 sessions of hippotherapy. INCLUSION CRITERIA: The volunteers should be have more than 6 months after stroke; have a level 3 or higher in the Functional Ambulation Category (FAC) ‐ walk independently or with the help of a third party; have a score higher than 24 in the Mental State Mini Exam or appropriate score in case of illiterates. For subjects with multiple sclerosis: The inclusion criteria adopted were: women aged between 20 and 60 years; confirmed medical diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in its most frequent form (referent‐recurrent); rated between 1.0 and 3.0 by the EDSS scale.