Therapeutic Exercise Platform for Type-2 Diabetic Mellitus

Abstract

Exercise enables continuous glycemic control for diabetic patients, and it is effective in preventing diabetic complications and maintaining emotional stability. However, it is difficult for diabetic patients to know the appropriate intensity and duration of exercise. Excessive exercise causes sudden hypoglycemia, and patients avoid therapeutic exercise or perform it conservatively owing to the repeated hypoglycemia symptoms. In this paper, we propose a new therapeutic exercise platform that supports type 2 diabetes patients to exercise regularly according to the exercise prescription received from the hospital. The proposed platform includes the following three significant contributions. First, we develop a hardware platform that automatically tracks and records all aerobic exercise performed by a patient indoors or outdoors using a wearable band and aerobic exercise equipment. Second, we devise a patient-specific exercise stress test to know whether the patient is exercising according to his or her usual exercise regimen. Finally, we develop a mobile application that informs patients in real-time whether they are exercising appropriately for their exercise regimen each time they exercise. For platform evaluation and future improvement, we received satisfaction ratings and functional improvements through a questionnaire survey on 10 type 2 diabetes patients and 10 persons without a diabetes diagnosis who had used the proposed platform for more than 3 months. Most users were (1) satisfied with automatic exercise recording, and (2) exercise time increased. Diabetics reported that their fasting blood glucose was dropped, and they were more motivated to exercise. These results prove that exercise must be combined with medication for blood glucose management in chronic diabetic patients. The proposed platform can be helpful for patients to continue their daily exercise according to their exercise prescription.