Kondratek, Melodie DUmbras, Miranda Mae PelkeyChoi, MyungBrown, Elise2025-07-112025-07-112024-01-01https://hdl.handle.net/10323/18818Heart disease is widespread and complex. Acquired heart disease is the number one killer of Americans and congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect. An important aspect of living with heart disease is participating in regular exercise, at least 150 minutes per week for adults and around 60 minutes per day for children. Most Americans do not come close to meeting these guidelines. One way individuals with heart disease can achieve their exercise is through a cardiac rehabilitation program. A hurdle to overcome with cardiac rehabilitation is the high dropout rate due to a variety of factors, including lack of variety in programing. The first project below explores utilizing aerobic dance as a modality of exercise during cardiac rehabilitation with children. A 30-minute dance class was completed with children without heart disease to establish a control and for safety considerations. Utilizing guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) for moderate intensity, the 45 participants, aged six through 10 years old, all fell within the guidelines for both heart rate reserve and percent of age predicted maximum heart rate. These results demonstrate that this aerobic dance protocol is moderate intensity and is a potential mode of exercise for use within cardiac rehabilitation. The other project aims were to determine why children with CHD are not meeting the established exercise guidelines. Participants completed an 18-item survey to report their barriers to exercise. The most common barriers came from external factors, with the highest reported being “the weather is too bad”. Another highly reported barrier was “I don’t have enough energy”. Low energy level has been historically noted in persons with CHD. The tool used was reliable within the sample population, but the validity is lacking, and further validation in children with CHD is a prospect for future research. The results of this study may aid in determining how to create exercise interventions for this population. Overall, these two studies fill gaps in the literature of exercise in children, CHD, and pediatric cardiac rehabilitation. They also provide a foundation for many future studies.Cardiac rehabilitationCongenital heart diseaseExercise physiologyHealth behavior