Physical Activity in Children During Hematopoietic Stem Cells Transplantation (HSCT)

The intervention consists in a standardized physical exercise (PE) and rehabilitation counselling indications (RCI). PE is done 5 days/week (2 days in autonomy by the patient with parents support and 3 days supervised). Each session lasts 30 minutes and this is supervised by one therapist for all patients. Patients are enrolled in an EP composed by three different types of exercises, each carried out for 10 minutes per session: muscle strength exercises for upper and lower extremities preceded by warming up, aerobic exercises and stretching. The kind of exercise is differentiated by age range (children, 5-12 years and adolescents, 13-18 years).

RCI, which have to be followed daily, consist in some practical advice was given on how to adopt an active lifestyle during the recovery (e.g., getting up to go to the bathroom, getting up to move to the window to talk with visitors, sit on chair to have school lessons).