Diabetes Community Exercise Programme participants Chris Fogarty (left) and Judy Dodd cycling on World Diabetes Day.
People attending community diabetes exercise classes in Dunedin and Invercargill set out this week to walk, bike and row their way between the two cities – and got further than they intended.
They were taking part in an event organised by Otago's Otago School of Physiotherapy as part of the International Diabetes Federation's World Diabetes Day 2018.
The Diabetes Community Exercise Programme (DCEP) is an inter-professional, coordinated, patient-centred, whānau-supported package of care. One of the classes is a community intitative the School has been running for 10 years, and the other three are part of an HRC funded research project.
In each of four classes participants walked and used bike and rowing stations; the distances they covered were recorded and added together.
The intention was to clock up a combined 207km (the distance between the two southern cities) but they ended up covering 345km, which effectively meant adding on the distance between Invercargill and Manapouri.
A map showing the distance participants intended to clock up, and the distance they managed.
DCEP Clinical Lead, Chris Higgs, says a focus of World Diabetes Day was on whanau and to raise awareness of the impact that diabetes has on the family and support network of those affected.
In one class, a regular participant took along her daughter and grand-daughter to help in the quest for distance.
While the event had novelty value, it also underpinned the well-established importance of the regular exercise classes for those living with diabetes.
Chris Fogarty, who was diagnosed with diabetes 10 years ago, said he attends the community classes regularly.
“It helps to keep me fit and it gives a bit of focus to how I deal with it.”