A panel of Italian experts has advised that clinicians should encourage people with hemophilia to engage in regular physical activity and sporting activities.

In order to assist clinicians in deciding when and how to recommend physical activity to people with hemophilia, Chiara Biasoli of the unit of transfusion medicine and Centre for Inherited Bleeding Disorders, Maurizio Bufalini Hospital in Cesena, Italy, and colleagues, started the MEMO (Movement for Persons With Haemophilia) expert consensus project. The MEMO scientific committee developed a set of consensus statements, which cover three topic areas: impact of hemophilia on movement, physical activity recommendations, and the choice and management of sporting activities.

The panel stated that even people with inhibitors should be encouraged to be regularly active. On sporting activities, the panel recommends working in a multidisciplinary team, including hematologists, musculoskeletal specialists and specialists in sports medicine, with the latter helping determine the type of sporting activity that will be most appropriate. The expert panel has also created four pyramids of movement that might help clinicians discuss the recommendations with their patients… (Medscape)