Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise in Congenital Heart Disease in Children

• Autor(a) principal: Bettencourt Dias, Mónica; Centro de Medicina e Reabilitação de Alcoitão, Alcoitão, Alcabideche, Cascais
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Rocha, Afonso; Hospital de São João - Centro Hospitalar do Porto, Porto, Parada, Fernando; Hospital de São João - Centro Hospitalar do Porto, Porto
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25759/spmfr.231
• topic: Child; Exercise; Exercise Therapy; Heart Defects, Congenital/rehabilitation; Cardiopatias Congénitas/reabilitação; Criança; Exercício; Terapia por Exercício

Currently survival has increased in patients with congenital heart disease due to advances in medicine. However, most of these patients still does not perform regular physical activity, not due to their underlying disease, but because fears of themselves, family members and teachers related to the disease. Also cardiac rehabilitation programs with well-known benefits in adults are still little performed in children and adolescents and it is not known the methodology and results at the level of functional abilities and psychological condition of these patients. The authors reviewed the literature searching for the current evidence of cardiac rehabilitation programs for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease and current recommendations for practice of physical activity.Most studies report the beneficial effects of multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation programs, including psychological and nutritional counselling, to decrease the number of new hospitalizations and improve functional capacity and quality of life of these patients. At the same time, there are many articles that point out that physical exercise and participation in competitive sports in most cases is possible and safe, if the patient follow the necessary recommendations to their pathology in particular and the advices given for their attending physician in relation to this particular subject.