Development of a Physical Therapy-Based Exercise Program for Adults with Down Syndrome.

In adults with Down syndrome, the combination of low physical activity and fitness levels and the high prevalence of musculoskeletal co-morbidities stresses the need for specialized exercise programs. The goal of this research study was to develop a specialized exercise program for individuals with Down syndrome using the physical therapy approach of a systems review as the foundation. We first conducted an overview of the literature on co-morbidities in adults with Down syndrome using the systems review method to categorize these findings. We extracted recommendations for content and delivery of an exercise program based on the literature review, and finally composed a specialized exercise program for individuals with Down syndrome adhering to these recommendations.

Small Steps in Fitness, Major Leaps in Health for Adults With Intellectual Disabilities.

Physical fitness is positively related to health outcomes like morbidity and all-cause mortality, with minimally required cutoff values to generate those health benefits. Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit very low fitness levels well below those cutoff values. Our novel hypothesis is that even among very unfit, older adults with ID, small changes in fitness translate to major changes in health.

Do individuals with intellectual disability have a lower peak heart rate and maximal oxygen uptake?

BACKGROUND: Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) have very low physical activity and low peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak ), potentially explained by physiologically lower peak heart rates (HRpeak ). METHOD: The present authors performed a retrospective analysis of a large data set of individuals with intellectual disability (n = 100), with Down syndrome (DS) (n = 48) and without intellectual disability (n = 224) using multiple linear regression analyses, to determine if individuals with intellectual disability exhibit lower HRpeak and VO2peak than individuals without intellectual disability, controlling for age, sex and body mass index (BMI). RESULTS: Individuals with intellectual disability on average have significantly lower HRpeak and VO2peak than individuals without intellectual disability, even when controlling VO2peak for the lower HRpeak . CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests potential physiological differences in individuals with intellectual disability and warrants further investigation to determine their relevance to physical activity promotion and exercise testing in individuals with intellectual disability.