Exercise testing is a valuable noninvasive tool that we use to identify your child's functional limits. We also use exercise testing to help detect heart and/or lung problems. 

During an exercise test, an electrocardiogram (ECG) is taken while your child exercises on our treadmill or stationary bicycle. While your child exercises, we make periodic adjustments to the treadmill or stationary bicycle so we can monitor changes in your child's heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production and pulse oximetry as he exerts himself. We also evaluate his ECG results to see the effects of increasing stress on his heart.

We use exercise testing to:

• Evaluate your child's congenital heart and/or lung disease
• Evaluate your child's cardiac and pulmonary functional capacity
• Assess your child's symptoms and activity-related problems (fainting, chest pain, exercise-induced asthma, etc.)
• Assess your child's aerobic and musculoskeletal conditioning
• Learn how medications might affect your child's exercise performance
• Develop an exercise plan as part of your child's overall care and treatment plan

The results of this are usually jointly interpreted by one of the pulmonary doctors in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine and one of the cardiology doctors at the Cardiac Center.