La influencia de las técnicas de fisioterapia en la disminución de la dependencia a la insulina en diabetes mellitus tipo I

Abstract

THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL THERAPY TECHNIQUES IN REDUCING THE INSULIN DEPENDENCE IN TYPE I DIABETES MELLITUS In this investigation, it was evaluated the influence of therapeutic physical activity in controlling glucose levels and life quality of youngsters with type I diabetes mellitus (DM1). The sample comprised 100 youngsters from the Endocrinology Unit of the Pediatric Hospital of Coimbra and from the All- Terrain Diabetic Association (DTT), whose ages range between 10 and 20 years, a 14.2 years average, whose inclusion criteria allowed the performance of the therapeutic physical activities. It was used a drawing of the quasi-experimental design, where data were collected through a 3 parts questionnaire - a collecting individual data; the other on quality of life scale (Audit of Diabetes-Dependent Quality of Life (ADDQoL) and a form to collect health parameters, including time coping with the disease, total cholesterol, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, body mass index and blood glucose. Physical activities, embodied in the activities program promoted by DTT, comprising: walking, rowing, dancing, swimming and biking, implemented from 12/2006 to 08/2007. On physical activities performance day, the levels of blood glucose and of the administrated insulin were collected before and after physical activity. In the statistical procedures it was applied the ANOVA with repetitions and Biplot analyses based on SPSS 16.0 for Windows and InfoStat 2007. The results showed that the therapeutic physical activities performance helped control blood sugar and improved life quality of type I diabetes mellitus youngsters, particularly in reducing the side effects of insulin administration.