Sports and Children with Hemophilia: Current Trends.

Lorenzo Moretti,Teresa Ladogana,Biagio Moretti,Davide Bizzoca,Federica Albano,Claudio Buono

doi:10.3390/children8111064

Lorenzo Moretti, Teresa Ladogana + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/children8111064

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Abstract

Hemophilia is a sex-linked recessive disorder characterized by a lack of blood factors necessary for clotting. This review aims to investigate the benefits of sports activities in children with hemophilia in terms of both physical and psychological wellness. Sports activity is necessary for children with hemophilia to preserve joints’ range of motion, reduce joint bleeding, improve muscle mass and strength, enhance proprioception and prevent secondary chronic diseases. In the past, high-impact sports were usually forbidden in children with hemophilia because of their high bleeding risk. Recent studies, however, have shown that prophylaxis therapy can allow a hemophilic child to take part in vigorous activities or high-impact sports. The benefits of sports activity in children with hemophilia are expressed by a better muscular trophism and an improved bone mineral density. Moreover, physical activity has a positive impact on children’s psychosocial well-being. Due to prophylaxis therapy, the quality of life of children with hemophilia is similar to their peers, and this has allowed an improvement in sports participation, including team sports.

Highlights

This disease mainly occurs in males and the deficit may be in factor VIII or factor IX [2]
This review aims to investigate the benefits of sports activities in children with hemophilia in terms of both physical and psychological wellness
The first step consisted of a scoping literature search performed by three reviewers, CB, TL and FA, supervised by DB, using the PubMed database to select an initial pool of potentially relevant papers, originally designed to investigate the feasibility of physical activity in children with hemophilia

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Hemophilia is a sex-linked recessive disorder characterized by a lack of blood factors necessary for clotting [1]. This disease mainly occurs in males and the deficit may be in factor VIII (hemophilia type A or classic type) or factor IX (type B) [2]. Patients with severe plasma protein deficit can have recurrent muscular and especially joint bleeding episodes, which may lead to musculoskeletal pain and physical and functional ability reduction, compromising their quality of life [3]

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