Physical Activity in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients: Organizational Aspects and Preliminary Results of the Italian Project

Abstract Most of the difficulties when trying to realize the proposal to prescribe physical activity for transplantation patients come from patient attitudes and cultural beliefs that ignore the benefits of exercise, but there also are organizational aspects arising from the difficulties that these patients face in accessing supervised exercise facilities. To address these difficulties, the Italian study project “Transplant … and Now Sport” was developed based on a model of cooperation among transplantation specialists, sports physicians, and exercise specialists organized as a team combining their specific skills to effectively actuate the physical exercise programs. This preliminary report is based on 26 patients (16 male, 10 female; 47.8 ± 10.0 years old; 21 kidney and 5 liver transplantations; time from transplantation 2.3 ± 1.4 years) who performed prescribed and supervised exercises consisting of 3 sessions per week of aerobic and strengthening exercises for 1 year. Preliminary results show a significant decrease in body mass index (t = 1.966; P P P P P P P