Exercise Therapy on Fatigue, Sleep Quality, and Quality of Life in
Children Undergoing Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation
Abstract
Background: Children undergoing umbilical cord blood transplantation
(UCBT) have many treat-related severe side effects, which affects their
quality of life (QoL) seriously. Exercise can help mitigate fatigue,
improve sleep quality and QoL, however, the effects on children
undergoing UCBT is limited. Procedure: Forty-eight children patients
submitted to UCBT were divided into two groups by convenience sampling.
The exercise therapy group performed abdominal breathing training
combined with active joint movement program 3 days a week during
hospitalization. The control group received routine exercise education
without any scheduled programs. The fatigue, sleep quality, and QoL were
evaluated at the date of hospital admission and discharge, and the
differences between two groups were estimated using Student t test.
Results: The exercise therapy group showed higher scores of general
fatigue, rest fatigue, cognitive fatigue and the Pediatric Quality of
Life Inventory (PedsQL) Multidimensional Fatigue Scale (MFS) total
score, but no significant differences were found between two groups
(p>0.05). There was an improvement in the sleep quality, verified by a
reduction in the global score, subjective sleep quality, sleep latency,
sleep efficiency, and daytime dysfunction (p<0.05), analysis of the
PedsQL 3.0 Cancer Module also revealed an improvement in procedure
anxiety, worry, cognition, appearance, communication and total score in
the exercise therapy group (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our prospective study
demonstrates that exercise therapy is safe and feasible for children
undergoing UCBT, and it has beneficial effects on sleep quality and
QoL.