In accordance with the definition provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), we regard chronic diseases to be “diseases of long duration and generally slow progression”. In the context of children, chronic diseases are diseases with prolonged durations that seriously disrupt a child’s normal life and require time-intensive treatment by a paediatrician.
A child who experiences long and repeated hospitalisations due to a chronic disease exhibits physical, mental, and psychological characteristics during the disease’s appearance, course, and treatment that produce upsetting situations that affect medical, psychological, social, familial, and educational considerations (Fernández Hawrylak, 2002; 71).
By adopting an inclusive approach, physical activity can create a welcoming and empowering environment that benefits everyone. From the point of view of health professionals, practitioners dealing with adolescents and child should remember to encourage sports practice as part of the treatment of young patients with chronic health conditions at a level appropriate for each specific health problem.
Children with chronic medical conditions face many challenges when considering sports participation. Compared with their healthy peers, they are often discouraged from physical activity or sports participation because of real or perceived limitations imposed by their condition. Prescribed exercise should be based on the demands of the sport, the effect of the disease on performance, and the potential for exercise-induced acute or chronic worsening of the illness or disability.
Health professionals should promote regular physical activity for children with chronic disease to achieve health and fitness benefits as well as the development of appropriate social skills. Guidelines for healthy school-age children generally recommend 60 min of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day, incorporate high-intensity activities and regular muscle and bone strengthening exercises at least three days a week, and reduce recreational screen time to less than 2 h daily.
Engaging in sufficient levels of physical activity improves:
- cardiopulmonary health, strength, flexibility and endurance
- social interaction and social and mental well-being
- Health-related quality of life: physical, emotional, mental and functional domains.
Sports practice and physical exercise are a very important issue especially for adolescents and children with chronic health conditions. For this reason the Consortium KidsTUMove goes Europe – cordially fit aims to develop a Trainer Manual to support exercise professionals to plan sports activities, share interventions and recommendations responding to the needs of the children and young people to make sport an accessible and safe activity for all.
Source: Joan Jordi Muntaner, Dolors Forteza, Miquel Salom, The Inclusion of Students with Chronic Diseases in Regular Schools, Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, Volume 132, 2014; Coleman, Nailah MD, FAAP, FACSM; Nemeth, Blaise A. MD, MS; LeBlanc, Claire M.A. MD, FRCPC, FAAP. Increasing Wellness Through Physical Activity in Children With Chronic Disease and Disability. Current Sports Medicine Reports 17(12):p 425-432, December 2018
