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Diabetes Canada has undertaken an interesting nationwide initiative for physicians working with individuals with pre-diabetes or diabetes. The initiative is equipping diabetes professionals with exercise knowledge they need to prescribe exercise in a manner similar to the way that medications are prescribed.
The ultimate objective is to have every physician ask questions at every visit about what kinds of activity and how much activity each patient is getting. Blanket recommendations to get active without individualization have not been successful. It is important for diabetes professionals to evaluate exercise habits before prescribing exercise. For example, taking into consideration information about preferred forms of physical activity, together with physical limitations such as backache, sore joints or previous injuries.
Recommendations may be to start small by limiting sedentary recreation time such as watching television to no more than 2 hours per week, advancing to 4 weekly sessions of walking for 10 minutes, increasing further to 5 days per week walking for 30 minutes and then adding resistance exercise, etc. As you and the person you support will be able to confirm, it’s also important to find activities that will be enjoyed.
Diabetes Canada has a downloadable exercise prescription pad. It provides doctors with five prescription options, depending on an individual’s fitness level and gradually increases in intensity and duration as people make exercise part of their daily routine.
Another initiative which is gaining ground by leaps and bounds is the adoption of the Diabetes Physical Activity and Exercise Toolkit for national distribution. The Toolkit was developed at Acadia University.* This resource contains information about exercise and diabetes, basic aerobic and resistance training teaching tips as well as materials to help diabetes educators promote physical activity and exercise in their practices.
There have been several workshops held across various provinces to train diabetes educators. Diabetes educators are physicians, nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, physiotherapists, kinesiologists, podiatrists and other health professionals who have undergone special training and have received certification from Diabetes Canada.
Want to see a 3:30 minutes preview? Just browse “Diabetes Exercise Toolkit in Youtube”.
You can also access the basic resistance exercises using exercise bands being demonstrated by Dr.Fowles with the help of two patients.
Just go to Diabetes Canada website (www.diabetes.ca) and click on FOR PROFESSIONALS and go to Professional Resources - Other Resources - Resistance Exercise Videos. Read the disclaimer first. You can then click on introduction and viewing to tryout workouts 1 and 2 and additional exercises.
Improper alignment while using a Thera-Band® or lifting weights can place unnatural or uneven stresses on various body parts. Hence initial instruction by a trained diabetes educator is important before you embark on resistance exercises on your own. If you prefer to use dumbbells, these exercises can be accessed at:
http://www.diabetes.ca/documents/for-professionals/5_Resistance_Exercise.pdf
Enjoy getting fit.
*Developed by Dr. Jonathon Fowles, Dr. Chris Shield, as well as other team members from the Department of Recreation Management and Kinesiology in collaboration with the Diabetes Care Program of Nova Scotia and the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.
