Exercise as it relates to Disease/Benefits of exercise in Down Syndrome

What is Down Syndrome

Down syndrome is one of the single largest subgroups of individuals with a moderate to severe intellectual disability. Down syndrome is due to an extra chromosome 21, three instead of two. Children when born can be recognised straight away with their facial features of the upward slanting eyes and the snub nose.

The varies of Down Syndrome Has

Down syndrome people vary in -

• personalities,
• abilities,
• interests,
• behaviour,
• social skills and
• self-management.

Some Down syndrome people suffer from sleep apnoea as a result of nocturnal breathing problems, and through being overweight. There is a tendency for individuals with Down syndrome to lose some their abilities as they move from adolescence into adulthood.

Prevalence

Approximately 1 child in every 700 to 1000 live births has the syndrome. The risk of having a child with down syndrome is increase in the age of the mother, there is a 1 in 2000 chances that the child will be down syndrome if the mother is at 20, 1 in 1000 chance of the mother been in the 30s, but a 1 in 20 chance of the child been down syndrome if the mother is above 45. . More than 44 per cent of Down syndrome people have a heart condition, 60 per cent have a vision problem and 66 percent have a hearing defect.

Effects of Down Syndrome

People with Down syndrome have a lower level of cardiovascular fitness than the rest of the community. The physiological characteristics of the Down syndrome individuals show that the limitations and the restriction to both cardiovascular and resistance based exercise, with a poor skeletal muscle development. Sedentary behaviour as well as the physical behaviour commonly associated with the condition of the weakness in the muscular system. Which leads to a higher prevalence of heart defects and circulatory abnormalities, low maximal heart rates and pulmonary abnormalities have been suggested as a reason for their poor levels of physical fitness. The number of increases of community- dwelling individuals, who may live a benefit life from structured exercise interventions to remain productive and healthy but with the reduced exercise capacity this causes the people with Down syndrome from childhood to adulthood to suffer in everyday life. Over this, the need to investigate of designing a specific exercise so that the people with Down syndrome will be able to perform functional tasks such as everyday living. This is why there need to be more knowledge in the Down syndrome peoples causes, effects and management of reduced exercise capacity. With this compared to the rest of the community it is suggested that the thought of the poor cardiovascular fitness puts people with down syndrome at a greater risk of health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and obesity. Through all this there needs to be an increase interest in the developing and implementation to produce a program to improve the cardiovascular fitness and ultimately the health and physical activity of the people who have Down syndrome.

Recommendation

People with Down syndrome usually achieve during exercise using relatively large muscle mass and represents the integrative ability of the heart to generate a higher cardiac output. The peak of exercise capacity of people with Down syndrome produce a lower VO2peak, shorter time exhaustion and a lower peak work rate in these individuals compared to non-down syndrome people.

• Types of Exercise

The types of exercises that benefit the person with Down Syndrome vary but with this varying in activities this leads towards a more fun going exercise which keeps the people with down syndrome more motivated to exercise and become less lazy.

• • Types of exercises include:
    • Walking
    • Dancing
    • Playing Ball
    • Biking
    • Aerobics
    • Rope Jumping
    • Other

With these exercises, there is a significant difference in the individual’s benefits. People with Down syndrome reportedly give more energy once exercised. As well joint pain and stiffness decrease once the individual has exercised.

• • Training Programs

Training programs that can suit the individual is a 45 minute session 3 times a week (30 minutes of cardiovascular training and 15 minutes of strength training). With this it has shown an increase in the cardiovascular fitness and the muscular strength and endurance, as well there can be a reduction in body weight.