Despite marked reductions in exercise capacity driven by chronotropic, stroke volume, and ventilatory limitations, children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome after staged palliation should still be encouraged to participate in school and leisure sports.
The exercise capacity of children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome is markedly reduced. Limitations in heart rate increase and stroke volume augmentation are the major contributors to this. An abnormal ventilatory response to exercise also adds to their limitation in exercise tolerance. However, the degree of physical disability does not justify discouraging these patients from school and leisure sports.
Möller et al. (Thu,) studied this question.