Daily physical activity in asthmatic children with distinct severities.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to evaluate daily physical activity (DPA) in asthmatic children with different levels of disease severity, but with good asthma control, relative to a control group.


METHODS
This was a cross-sectional study in which a total of 121 children between the ages of 7 and 12 years old were evaluated; 72 were asthmatic children (32 mild, 24 moderate and 23 severe), and 42 children were not asthmatics. The asthmatic children studied had been in medical treatment for at least 6 months and experienced no change in symptoms during the 4 weeks prior to the study. The DPA was monitored over 6 days (4 weekdays and 2 weekend days). Motor activity was recorded with an accelerometer that measured the total number of steps (TNS), the number of steps in moderate physical activity (NS-MPA) and the duration, in minutes, of physical activity performed at moderate intensity.


RESULTS
There were no differences among the TNS performed by children with mild, moderate or severe persistent asthma and the control group (14 410 ± 4379, 14 710 ± 4892, 13 838 ± 3341 and 12 968 ± 3682 steps, respectively). The NS-MPA was also similar among all of the groups (6589 ± 2065, 6605 ± 2324, 6223 ± 1689 and 5990 ± 1840 steps, respectively). Sedentary asthmatic children were overweight more often than asthmatic children who were physically active, although lung function was not different between these groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Children with good asthma control, independent of disease severity, had DPA levels similar to children without asthma. However, more asthmatic children were overweight if sedentary as compared to physically active asthmatic children.
Department of Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, University of São Paulo , São Paulo , Brazil .
Andrey Wirgues
AW
Sousa
Anna Lúcia Barros
AL
Cabral
Milton Arruda
MA
Martins
Celso R F
CR
Carvalho
D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
Accelerometer; children; motor activity; sedentary; step