The Children’s Diabetes Centre recently held summits for young people with Type 1 Diabetes to get their input into the development of new exercise guidelines for patients.
The first summit was attended by 24 participants aged 18-25 years and the second included 15 participants aged 13-18 years.
Both summits explored how participants use technology (apps) to help manage physical activity and diabetes. The two groups were also asked for their thoughts on what the new exercise guidelines should contain and how they should be presented.
Researcher Vinutha Shetty said the existing guidelines for managing diabetes around exercise varied and were challenging to follow.
“Our research team are running studies in order to fill the gaps in the current guidelines to develop more comprehensive and evidence-based guidelines for people with Type 1 Diabetes to safely participate in a more physically-active lifestyle,” Dr Shetty said.
“In both summits the participants were very enthusiastic to give their feedback and we have collected great ideas which will be taken into consideration to develop a paper prototype of how the guidelines will be delivered and what features they will include.”
The participants will be invited back for a third summit to further workshop their ideas. Following on from this, participants at the final summit will be shown the new guidelines and provided with an opportunity to comment further before it is taken to an app developer.
The Children's Diabetes Centre is doing a lot of research into the best ways for patients with Type 1 Diabetes to exercise safely. If you are interested in taking part in one of the exercise trials, or learning more about what we are doing, please email diabetes.research@health.wa.gov.au or visit our research section here.