Refocusise, undertaken by University Hospitals Dorset (UHD), represents an adaption on a “rehabilitation” programme similar to cardiac or pulmonary rehab, by adding exercise into an already proven diabetes education offering called Refocus. The aim of this being to improve fitness, glycaemic control and psychological outcomes for people living with type 2 diabetes.
Immediate and longer term (2-year) impacts of this service redesign have been reviewed and a poster summarising these, for cohorts 1 to 8, can be viewed here.
Since this poster was published, results are now available for cohorts 1 to 12, which show an average reduction of:
- 9.22 mmol/mol in HbA1C
- 2.2 bpm in resting heartrate
- 3.19 mmHg in systolic blood pressure
- 3.35 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure
- 0.62 kg/M2 in body mass index
- 1.22 in anxiety (measured via the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale)
- 1.56 in depression (measured via the HAD scale)
These results indicating that, combining exercise with education for people living with type 2 diabetes, can have a profound effect immediately after the 8-week course, as well as continuing to improve over 1-year post course and sustaining into the second year after the course.
