A gym only for children with cancer | Spain

If playing sports is a beneficial practice for health in general, in the case of people with cancer it generates a scientifically proven decrease in the toxicity and side effects of treatments. When the patients are children, the benefit goes beyond the physical and psychological: it means bringing a touch of normality to a life marked by admissions, operations and long stays in day hospitals. It allows “childhood to be maintained despite cancer” because “play and sport are essential for a minor to have a healthy childhood,” explains to EL PAÍS Ishtar Espejo, director of the Aladina Foundation, which works at the national level to improve quality of life of pediatric oncology patients.

For this reason, the charity, which has been promoting sport among these minors since 2012, has now proposed to build the first gym specifically aimed at children with cancer. It will be at the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital in Murcia, where an average of 60 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year in children between 0 and 18 years of age, and will cost 800,000 euros. The challenge of achieving them has already begun.

Espejo does not hide his enthusiasm for this project, which will allow minors undergoing treatment to carry out specific exercises in “optimal” conditions, and will also facilitate the promotion of new scientific studies on sport as a complement to the treatment of childhood cancer. The scientific evidence that already exists on these benefits led the Aladina Foundation to implement a physical exercise program in 2012 in the Madrid hospitals of Niño Jesús, 12 de Octubre and Gregorio Marañón, in addition to Murcia.

In all of them, minors currently carry out exercises guided by a specialized instructor, but they do so in small spaces or provided by other specialties, such as the areas of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation. In the case of the Murcia hospital, where in 2023 the foundation offered sports support to 117 minors with cancer, children undergoing treatment exercise under the guidelines of sports educator Raúl Lidón almost anywhere: hallways, waiting rooms, game rooms and even the rooms. Thais, who is 10 years old and is being treated for leukemia, was the first patient at the hospital to have an exercise bike installed in her room, which she began to use guided by Lidón during her recovery from a bone marrow transplant, says her mother. , Blanca Bonilla. “She loves that Raúl visits her, exercising encourages her, even though she doesn’t feel like it. Before she didn’t want to walk, she was always very tired, but now she continues exercising even when we are at home, she connects online with Raúl and we even do the exercise together,” she explains.

She is not the only mother who takes the opportunity to join the exercise program with her son: Dianira Padilla practices it with Robert, 11 years old, also with leukemia, because it is something that helps them both “distract themselves.” “Being able to play sports raises your spirits a lot,” she says, since the harsh treatment her son receives causes significant side effects on an emotional level, with “very strong mood swings” that have been minimized with this program. But the improvement is also physical, she says. After spending six months in bed, Robert had serious difficulties walking, he had lost strength and a lot of muscle mass. His mother believes that this physical exercise program has been crucial in his recovery.

It is not a subjective sensation, but is supported by scientific studies, details José Luis Fuster, the head of the Children’s Onco-Hematology service at the Murcia hospital, who explains that there is numerous evidence that the practice of exercise by oncology patients improves many of the side effects of aggressive treatments. When these people practice sports, asthenia and chronic fatigue are reduced, pain decreases, muscle and bone mass that is frequently lost during treatments increases, in addition to the positive impact on socialization and “normalization” of life and “relaxes the tension of the hospital environment, both for patients and their families.” “In general, sport has a positive impact on the quality of life of these patients. That alone would be enough to recommend it, but it also has scientifically proven physical and psychological benefits,” confirms the doctor.

For this reason, he is very satisfied that Fundación Aladina has chosen Arrixaca for its project to create a gym within the hospital. The area of ​​pediatric oncology, which was launched 27 years ago, he assures, has been growing substantially, “medical care is completely guaranteed,” but “the public health system has its limitations,” he acknowledges, even more so in “complex” pathologies such as cancer, “with a serious diagnosis in the case of children and adolescents, in general with very long hospitalization periods and serious side effects of treatments.” In that sense, the head of the hospital’s Pediatric Service, Encarna Guillén, assures that the center’s management has always been supportive and open to “public-private collaboration.” In fact, in the area of ​​Pediatrics, there are numerous entities, associations and foundations that altruistically collaborate in aspects such as the decoration of rooms and stays, care for families, or the promotion of leisure for hospitalized minors.

This openness of the hospital to accept new projects is, precisely, in the words of the director of Aladina, one of the aspects that weighed the most when choosing the Virgen de la Arrixaca to build this first pediatric oncology gym. Also the provision of free spaces in the center, something that is not always easy to achieve. In this case, the gym will occupy one of the roofs that connect two of the modules of the hospital’s Maternal and Child building, which began construction in 2006, although it was not officially inaugurated until 2018. It will have about 400 square meters, approximately half of them, outdoors and with shade, to take advantage of the good temperatures that are common in the city. Building it will cost about 800,000 euros, which Aladina hopes to raise through donations and organization of solidarity events that have already been launched, as well as the administrative process of obtaining licenses.

Ishtar Espejo does not dare to give dates, but insists that the new infrastructure will mark a before and after in the pediatric area of ​​the hospital. Because, although Aladina works specifically with oncology patients, this gym will be open “to all the hospital’s pediatric patients and their families,” regardless of their illness, she points out. “The scientific evidence of the improvements that playing sports entails in cancer and other pathologies is clear. Administration sometimes lags behind science. Our interest is that this scientific evidence be applied as soon as possible and, of course, that all hospitalized children can benefit,” she explains.

For adults

Outside of the hospital, for just two years in the Region of Murcia there has already been another gym project for cancer patients, in this case, adults. This is an initiative promoted in 2021 by the Never Surrender foundation, which was launched by another doctor from Virgen de la Arrixaca, Vladimir Salazar, when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Salazar died in November 2022, but he laid the foundations for the current project: a network of gyms (there are currently nine in operation in different municipalities in the region and another three in the pipeline) that offer free personalized training to acute oncology patients, That is, they are receiving radio, chemo or immunotherapy treatments, explains the president of the foundation, Alberto González-Costea.

Since the project started, they have treated about 500 people, all of them with favorable reports from their oncologists, and who are “prescribed” to practice strength exercise, adapted to their needs and particularities. The coordinator of the Never Surrender trainers, Rubén Toledo, explains that in these training programs, which are always personalized, all types of variables are monitored in order to develop future research projects that add to the numerous scientific literature that already supports the benefits of exercise in cancer patients.

Starting from the same conviction, Never Surrender and Aladina have begun to collaborate in the region with the objective that minors with cancer who participate in Aladina’s sports programs can practice the exercises that have been prescribed for them once they leave the hospital, using the facilities of the Murcian organization. They have also worked together in organizing charity events to seek funding for the pediatric gym. All with the shared objective of improving the prognosis and quality of life of childhood cancer patients.