Exercise Medicine Program
Location: 170 Elizabeth St, 4th Floor, 4B Atrium
Phone: 416-813-4914
Fax: 416-813-5582
Email: exercise.medicine@sickkids.ca
Being active and playing with family and friends is an important part of childhood, and it contributes to children and adolescents’ physical and mental well-being. Understanding the best types and levels of exercise and best choices for sport or recreational activity can be challenging for children living with a heart or chronic medical condition.
The Exercise Medicine Program, created within the Labatt Family Heart Centre at SickKids, is the first program in Canada to promote physical activity by providing individualized exercise programs for our patients based on a comprehensive medical and functional evaluation.
Program goals
Our goal is to help children and adolescents improve their health by reaching a level of physical activity/exercise they didn’t realize they could achieve. We want to empower them to participate in exercise and become more active and confident about their physical abilities.
During the program we help our patients to find the right motivation, mental and physical confidence, and knowledge they need to include physical activity, sport or exercise into their daily routine for life. We want to help our patients to discover strengths and abilities they may not have known they possessed and to find joy in moving their bodies.
Who can benefit
The program is designed for any child age 8 and older with a heart or chronic medical condition that might benefit from exercise and lifestyle counseling. We provide family-based lifestyle counseling, and we deliver individualized lifestyle programs that include recommendations for physical activity, sedentary behavior, nutritional habits and sleep hygiene.
What to expect
Each patient undergoes a comprehensive medical evaluation that includes four components.
Biometric Assessment
We record height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and body composition analysis at the beginning and end of the program.
Cardiac Fitness Evaluation
We use either a bike or walk test to evaluate a patient's cardiac fitness. The results of the test are used to personalize our exercise plans.
Quality of Movement and Muscle Strength Evaluation
Our movement and strength assessment involves the performance of 5 basic exercises. By observing patients performing these simple movements the program's kinesiologist is able to evaluate the quality of their movement and level of strength. The results are also used to personalize our exercise plans.
Questionnaires
Patients and their parents will be asked to complete quality of life and activity questionnaires.
Robin Deliva, PT, BScPT, MSc
Physiotherapist
Kelly West
Bethany Spiers
Danielle Squires
“I feel happier to know I can do more things. I can go more places and be less tired.”
Patient participant
“The Exercise Medicine program has helped me to feel more confident when I play sports or do activities.”
Patient participant
“If other kids like me are afraid of getting active I think this program would be good for them because it might help them get over their fears and realize that being active is fun and it is really an amazing thing. I love this program!”
Patient participant
“The Exercise Medicine program is important because it helps children like me to do things we didn’t think we could do on our own.”
Patient participant
“This program has helped us to discover which limitations are real, and which are created by worry and fear and it has helped us mitigate those fears by providing us with data, consultations and recommendations.”
Parent