Effect of a hippotherapy intervention program on static balance and strength in adolescents with intellectual disabilities.
Ten weekly hippotherapy sessions can boost single-leg balance and leg strength in teens with moderate ID, and similar gains can be reached without horses.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Giagazoglou et al. (2012) ran a ten-week hippotherapy program for teens with moderate intellectual disability.
They rode horses once a week. A second group got no lessons. The team checked one-leg balance and leg strength before and after.
What they found
The riding group stood longer on one foot and pushed harder with their legs. The no-lesson group stayed the same.
Balance and strength gains showed up after only ten sessions.
How this fits with other research
Ben Mansour et al. (2026) got similar motor gains with an eight-week mindfulness class instead of horses. Both studies show teens with ID can build motor skills in under three months, even with very different tools.
Ding et al. (2017) proved you can skip the barn entirely. They ran group workouts through tablet video chat and still kept kids active for twelve weeks. Their results extend Paraskevi’s work into telehealth, handy when horses or arenas are miles away.
Hemayattalab (2010) came first. He used plain gym workouts and also found strength gains in youth with ID. Paraskevi’s horse-based data line up with his, showing the effect holds across bikes, weights, or saddles.
Why it matters
You now have three cheap-to-run choices: horses, mindfulness, or Zoom workouts. If a family already rides, keep it going. If not, you can swap in a short mindfulness block or a video-chat exercise club and still hit balance and strength goals.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a hippotherapy program on static balance and strength in adolescents with intellectual disability (ID). Nineteen adolescents with moderate ID were assigned either an experimental group (n=10) or a control group (n=9). The experimental group attended a 10-week hippotherapy program. To assess static balance, three tasks of increasing difficulty (Double-Leg Stance with opened or closed eyes, and One-Leg Stance with opened eyes) were performed while standing on an EPS pressure platform (Loran Engineering S.r.I., Bologna, Italy). The strength measurements consisted of three maximal isometric half-squats from the seating position (knee joint at 90°). The hippotherapy intervention program resulted in significant improvements in strength parameters, and on the more complex balance task (i.e. standing on one leg). In conclusion, this study provides evidence that hippotherapy can be used as an effective intervention for improving balance and strength in individuals with ID, and could thus influence functional activities and quality of life.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2012 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.07.004