Physical activity in childhood is an integral part of maintaining health and quality of life. Children who participate in routine physical activity are more likely to maintain a healthy body weight and are less likely to have heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure as adults. Children with chronic disease are often limited from full participation in exercise for various reasons -perceived physical limitations, either from the patient and family or from their medical provider, or because of symptoms which cause exercise to feel uncomfortable. As the number of children living and aging with chronic disease continues to grow, the researchers are hoping to expand the current exercise testing capabilities for both clinical care and research in order to (i) provide data to permit formulation of evidence-based guidelines for exercise in chronic childhood disease; (ii) improve understanding of limitations to exercise in this growing population; (iii) learn long-term implications of chronic childhood disease as these individuals enter adulthood.
This study aims to more accurately assess cardiac function, ventilation and exercise capacity in a non-invasive fashion, and to better characterize exercise intolerance in the setting of three populations of individuals with chronic diseases of childhood (acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), chronic lung disease (CLD) of prematurity, and post-heart transplant (HT))