Thematic Issue: Exercise Testing in Children with
Congenital Heart Disease
Roselien
Buys, PhD, Tony Reybrouck, PhD, Marc Gewillig, MD, PhD
Roselien Buys, Tony Reybrouck, Department of
Cardiovascular Rehabilitation, University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
Roselien Buys, Tony Reybrouck, Department of
Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Marc Gewillig, Department of Pediatric Cardiology, University
Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
Marc Gewillig, Department of Cardiovascular Developmental Biology,
University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Correspondence to: Buys Roselien, KU Leuven,
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Tervuursevest 101 B 1501, 3001 Leuven,
Belgium.
Email: Roselien.buys@faber.kuleuven.be
Telephone: +32-486388176
Fax: +32-16329197
Received: November 11,
2014
Revised: December 3, 2014
Accepted: December 8, 2014
Published online: February 10, 2015
© 2015 ACT. All
rights reserved.
Buys R, Reybrouck
T, Gewillig M. Thematic Issue: Exercise Testing in Children with Congenital Heart
Disease. Journal of Cardiology and Therapy 2015; 2(1): 243 Available from: URL:
http://www.ghrnet.org/index.php/jct/article/view/1028
Editorial
Physical
inactivity is considered as a cardiovascular risk factor in adults. Also in
children, physical inactivity is often associated with disease. More
specifically children with congenital heart disease (CHD) often were quiescent
or did not perform the same activities as their healthy peers.
Exercise tolerance can be
assessed by history taking or with questionnaires, but is has been shown that
misclassifications were found by using these questionnaires with overestimation
of up to 30% of the level of physical activity[1]. Therefore
exercise tolerance has to be determined by exercise testing preferentially with
respiratory gas exchange measurements. In this thematic issue, three review
articles are published with a common theme of the assessment of exercise
performance in children with congenital heart disease, both operated and
non-operated.
The first chapter
is dedicated to new concepts in the assessment of exercise tolerance in
children with CHD. In this contribution, a new assessment paradigm that
optimizes the use of exercise test results to promote physically active
lifestyles is recommended. The assessment of physical literacy and an expanded
use of the data available from a maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test are
discussed in this light.
Since exercise capacity can
change in growing children, a second chapter describes the value of serial
exercise testing in children with CHD. Regularly repeated assessments of an
individual’s exercise function can therefore provide unique and valuable
insights into the capabilities and cardiovascular health of patients with CHD.
Serial exercise testing might as such provide important information both for
the assessment of the current health status as for the estimation of the long
term outcome of children with CHD.
And finally one contribution
will demonstrate the usefulness of exercise testing in the clinical decision
making regarding children with a left- to right shunt. Furthermore, in this
review, the effects of abolishing left-to right shunt on exercise capacity,
both early and late after closure will be summarized.
We hope that readers will
enjoy this issue, obtain useful information, and be inspired with new ideas for
the implementation and more expanded use of exercise testing in children with
CHD.
REFERENCES
1
Rogers R, Reybrouck T, Weymans M,
Dumoulin M, Van der Hauwaert L, Gewillig M. Reliability of subjective estimates
of exercise capacity after Total repair of tetraloogy of Fallot. Acta Paediatrica 1994; 83:
866-869.
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