Ten thousand steps and more. While the benefits of physical activity (PA) in cardiovascular disease are well known, the benefits in congenital heart defects and pathologies related to an abnormality in the formation of the heart or its associated vessels are less known. They affect about one in a hundred births and are more or less serious. This may require emergency intervention in the first hours of life.
“For a long time, patients with congenital heart defects were discouraged from engaging in physical activity.”explains Jean-Benoît Thambo, head of the congenital heart disease department at the Haut-Lévêque cardiology hospital (Pessac, Bordeaux University Hospital). “Today we have shown that supervised sports rehabilitation offers benefits for the patient and is certainly one of the best treatments.”continues the doctor, also president of the association Les Liens du coeur. It’s for him “a complete paradigm shift”.
The idea came from Pascal Amedro, cardio-pediatrician at Bordeaux University Hospital. In 2017, with his colleague Sophie Guillaumont from Montpellier University Hospital, he developed a rehabilitation program for 13- to 25-year-olds who were born with congenital heart defects, had surgery before their first year of life, and become deconditioned and out of breath during exercise.
In this study, called QualiRehab, 142 young people, half of whom were a control group, were evaluated at the time of enrollment (stress test with measurement of VO).2 max, quality of life questionnaire, PA level, psychological assessment, etc.). After a week in a cardiac rehabilitation center, the first group completed 12 weeks of retraining with two sessions per week at home and video sessions under the supervision of an Adapted Physical Activity (APA) teacher.
Improve quality of life
This is what the results show “the members of the group who had completed the three-month program saw a significant improvement in their quality of life a year later, VO2 max, PA value and a statistically significant decrease in anxiety, depression, body mass index and blood pressure.describes Pascal Amedro, also a researcher at the IHU Liryc (Institute for Rhythmology and Heart Modeling) in Pessac.
With these results, A program will start in January 2024 at the Bordeaux University Hospital with the Siel Bleu association, on the same model. Around ten children are accompanied to the hospital every week and around forty children are cared for at home and/or in sports clubs. The practices are adapted to the pathology and fatigue of each individual. This was made possible through donations from the Les Liens du coeur association.
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