THE ROLE OF A PHYSICAL THERAPIST IN THE TREATMENT OF DIABETES

Dr Shane Smith, PT, DPT
October 26, 2022

Diabetes is a condition in which the pancreas does not produce enough, or properly use, insulin within the body. Insulin is a hormone that allows sugar to move into our cells. When this is occurring in insufficient levels, too much sugar builds up in the blood. This, in turn, has a myriad of negative effects to our body.

There are two main types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes generally describes juvenile diabetes which first appears in childhood or young adulthood. Individuals diagnosed with type 1 diabetes experience a genetic immune response in which the cells which produce insulin in the pancreas are destroyed. The cause(s) of type 1 diabetes is still relatively unknown. Individuals dealing with this diagnosis require insulin supplementation and frequent checking of the blood sugar to avoid levels becoming dangerous. Unfortunately, there is no cure for type 1 diabetes and no way to prevent this from originating.

Alternatively, type 2 diabetes is usually preventable. This is diagnosed as the cells develop a resistance to insulin, causing blood sugar levels to rise. A resistance to insulin that occurs in this manner can be impacted by diet, exercise, and maintaining an appropriate body weight. Some of the complications that result from diabetes include heart disease, high blood pressure, skin care problems, kidney disease, neuropathy, and weakness. These, as well as many others, can lead to more serious problems include amputation or premature death.

Physical therapists (PTs) are in the unique position to help those with type 2 diabetes reduce their blood sugar levels in a multiple of ways. PTs can examine a log of blood sugar readings in addition to discussing activity levels to design an effective program for the patient to increase tolerance for desired activities. This may include strength training, flexibility and endurance training, balance training, pain reduction, gait training, and more based on patient needs.

Encouraging those diagnosed with type 2 diabetes to lead a healthy, active lifestyle is a major factor for PTs. Common practice is to design a home exercise program for these patients to continue what they learn in physical therapy independently. PTs can be an effective member of the healthcare team, in addition to the MD, nutritionist, and others, when dealing with diabetes.

Enlisting the services of a trained physical therapist can be an often overlooked aspect of dealing with diabetes. As movement experts, PTs have the knowledge and skill to encourage healthy lifestyle changes that can have an enormous impact on the quality of life for the patient.

Make your goal Real and Reasonable

One of the most important things to setting a New Year’s resolution is to keep it Real and Reasonable. Make the goal achievable and have monthly, and weekly mini goals as steps to achieving this main goal. To set a goal such as “be a better person” may sound great in your head, but that type of goal becomes very difficult for you to measure and to track weekly or monthly for progress. A good goal example would be “to lose 20 pounds this year”. That can be numerically tracked weekly and or monthly to set up steps of progress towards your main goal. Achieving smaller easier more reasonable goals allows you to keep motivation up and allow for a more likely success with your resolutions. I think setting easier goals to start is best and working to a bigger goal once the initial is achieved is another great way to get more success out of your resolutions.

Link your goal to your Habits

Another great option to improve your success with achieving resolution’s is to link it to an existing habit you do daily or weekly. For example, if your goal is to stay up on current events, or learn more about nutrition to better your overall health. You can choose to do this with time that you already have, such as driving in the car or getting breakfast ready in the morning. Both of these activities are going to be done on a daily basis, all you have to do is remember to hit play on your podcast while you’re in the car driving or while you are cooking. This will keep the learning time consistent and predictable. Once you have listened or done your learning periodically attempt to put your new knowledge to use and see how much progress you have made.

Keep others in the loop to maintain Accountability

One of the most effective tools to maintain and fulfill goals is to establish multiple sources of accountability. These points of accountability can be both internal and external. If friends or loved ones are in the loop on your goals from the start and are told why this resolution is important to you and ask them to periodically ask about how progress is going throughout the year, it will help with keeping you on task throughout the year even when fulfilling the goals seems out of reach. Those that know us best have a better time at helping up stay motivated when times get hard. Also keeping yourself accountable internally is a must for achieving your New Year’s resolution. You must establish ways to motivate yourself, and everyone is different in this light. Some do better with positive motivation, while others need to beat themselves up a bit with negativity to motivate change. Whatever is your direction of personal accountability go in it and don’t stop. Setting reminders in your room, or bathroom where you will see them on a daily basis as well as try to set reminders on your phone weekly or daily for the entire year with some message to yourself that will remind you why you are doing this, and why you need to keep going. Accountability is key to achieving the outcome of any goal you set in life.

Accept success comes in small steps not all at once

When I speak with my patient’s about Physical Therapy results, I always try and judge progress in small steps towards their goal of return to a normal life again without pain. We know if we are expecting progress by small changes in pain rating and ability to perform activities in everyday life with less problem we will stay motivated and optimistic about achieving our big goals. The same process should be applied to our new year’s resolution goals. By establishing a realistic and reasonable goal we should be able to track progress by some measurement or metric to track progress and change over time. If weight loss and the ability to fit into old clothes are the goals, then how many inches in the waist need to be lost, or how many total pounds need to be lost to achieve it? Divide the total amount of either weight or inches you hope you lose by 12, and that will be your monthly goal. If the steps towards your goal are visible and achievable the end goal becomes much easier to see. The idea of a weight loss goal of 24 pounds over the year, which would be equivalent to losing three inches around your waist, may seem extremely hard, but if I told you that is just two pounds a month that may make the overall goal seem much more attainable when looking at success in smaller more attainable steps.

Manage your Mindset and remember your Why for doing this

Changing your mindset isn’t easy and for 89% of people that start New Year’s Resolutions they are not able to change their mindset on maintaining accountability and developing a plan for success they fail. Habitual activities such as putting your seatbelt on when getting in a vehicle or performing morning grooming tasks in a certain order everyday just occur because it is such a routine task. If someone asked you why you do that, you would just say its habit. When our mindset on a tasks switches to habit it becomes very easy to do that task, and keep doing. On average it takes someone 2,000 times to do or to think about a task to make it habit. If you are giving yourself positive affirmations multiple times a day about your goals, and what you need to be doing step by step to achieve it, you will mentally change your perception on achieving that goal in a very positive reaffirming way.

Keeping these principles in mind I know everyone can and will succeed setting new year’s resolutions, and will have much more confidence due to these planning steps. If this year you need to get help to achieve your goals, then take that step to ensure your success. As discussed above with weight loss options, maybe committing to a Nutritionist for supervision and advice, or a life coach may pave the way to success. If your goal is improvement in pain and dysfunction in body movement then a Physical Therapist may be the right support to achieve your true long-term goals. If you are in the Naples, FL area we are always available to help with those pain and movement problems. We are offering this season to five people Free sessions to discover what’s the cause of your pain and movement issues. Please give us a call if you want to talk about what is needed to get out of pain.

Email: Info@naplespremierpt.com
Phone: (239)919-3510
Website: www.Naplespremierpt.com