Home-exercise Program for Children and Adolescent Survivors of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Effects of a Physical Exercise Program in Patients With Diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

• Exercise programs in children and teenagers with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) strengthens their physical fitness.
• Exercising improves muscular and functional mobility fitness after finalizing chemotherapy in children and teenagers diagnosed with ALL.
• Assess cardiological changes

Children and adolescents survivors of ALL will be randomly assigned to the intervention group and to the control group. A home-exercise program will be designed for 16 weeks with 55 sessions, combining aerobic, strength and flexibility exercises of light and moderate intensity. The following tests will be performed to evaluate the effects of the intervention program: Echocardiography, Tape treadmill test using a ramp protocol to assess cardiorespiratory fitness, hand grip test to assess muscular grip strength, Timed Up test And Go Test (TUG) and Timed Up and Down Stairs Test (TUDS) to assess functional mobility, the sit and reach test to assess flexibility and a questionnaire to assess levels of physical activity. The control group will perform their usual physical activity

Inclusion Criteria:

• The study included of children and adolescents between 7 and 18 years old that were at time in complete remission for a minimum of one year of their neoplastic disease and had finalized their chemotherapy treatments by the time they began the physical exercise program.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with structural cardiac anomalies, congenital cardiopathies, those in recurrence of their neoplastic diseases, signs of clinical or subclinical cardiac insufficiency and an echocardiography with alterations in systolic and/or diastolic function.