Many older people who have diabetes tend not to engage in any physical activity, fearing that it may cause traumas or injuries, which will further worsen their health. Thus, it becomes an important task for medical professionals to educate their patients on the significance of exercise, and to do it, one needs to conduct research to support their advice with evidence. The PICOT model provides a solid framework for formulating a question that will yield the most relevant results during searching for evidence (Jensen, 2018). Assessing the existing evidence discovered through a search using the PICOT method can significantly expand professionals’ understanding of a given problem and help them identify the best solutions. Using the provided template, the following question was formulated: Among older adults with diabetes mellitus (P), does exercise and physical activity (I) compared to the absence of exercise (C) impact the patients’ quality of life and well-being (O) over 6 months (T)?
The problem of diabetes concerns a large number of older people, and different exercise plans can potentially be used as a part of the program for increasing the quality of life of such patients. The search using the aforementioned PICOT questions returned several articles which describe studies dedicated to the topic of training for people with diabetes. For example, Baptista et al. (2017) discovered that multicomponent exercise positively affected mood and perceived mental of physical quality of life in older adults. This shows that training can be extremely beneficial for the well-being of patients with diabetes, and implementing it as a part of their routine can lead to effective results. I believe that currently, not all patients are aware of the importance of engaging in physical activity, and conducting a search can ensure that medical professionals will provide recommendations based on evidence.
References
Baptista, L. C., Machado-Rodrigues, A. M., & Martins, R. A. (2017). Exercise but not metformin improves health-related quality of life and mood states in older adults with type 2 diabetes. European Journal of Sport Science, 17(6), 794–804. Web.
Jensen, K. A. (2018). Seven steps to the perfect PICO search. EBSCO. Web.