Movement Matters: Restoring Function in People with Diabetes
Overview:
Movement matters in diabetes care.
Diabetes can have a profound impact on the foot and lower limb, affecting tissue elasticity, muscle strength, tendon function, joint mobility, gait, and pressure distribution.
Movement Matters: Restoring Function in People with Diabetes explores rehabilitation as an essential part of diabetes-related ulcer prevention and management, helping clinicians recognise early musculoskeletal changes and support patients to preserve mobility, function, and tissue resilience.
This practical webinar introduces the MSK consequences of diabetes, hyperglycaemia, and neuropathy, including the effects of glycation on soft tissue thickness, stiffness, and elasticity. It also considers how tissue stiffness, weakness, and deformity can influence gait, plantar pressure, and ulcer risk.
With a focus on simple, clinically useful assessment and rehabilitation strategies, this session will guide clinicians through how to identify changes in strength, mobility, balance, and function, and how to build evidence-informed rehab programmes that support safer movement and better long-term outcomes.
In this webinar, clinicians will explore
- The impact of mobility loss on quality of life for people living with diabetes.
- How glycation affects tissue elasticity, soft tissue thickness, and stiffness.
- How neuropathy and tissue changes contribute to weakness, stiffness, and deformity.
- The MSK effects of diabetes on the foot and lower limb.
- How muscle and tendon changes influence gait, plantar pressure, and ulcer risk.
- The role of rehabilitation in preserving mobility, function, and tissue resilience.
Practical assessment strategies
Clinicians will learn how to keep assessment simple and clinically meaningful, with a focus on strength, mobility, balance, and function. The session will introduce practical tests such as intrinsic muscle testing, heel raise testing, sit-to-stand assessment, balance screening, and mobility measures including first MTPJ and ankle dorsiflexion using the lunge test.
Evidence-informed rehabilitation
The webinar will guide clinicians through rehabilitation approaches that support mobility and function, including gastrocnemius, soleus, and plantar fascia stretching, joint mobility work, intrinsic foot strengthening, calf complex strengthening, and balance-based exercises.
Safety, load management, and ulcer risk
The session will also consider safety when prescribing exercise for people with diabetes, particularly when ulcer risk is high. It will explore load management, deconditioning during offloading, and how to support patients as they transition out of offloading footwear and into remission-focused rehabilitation.
What clinicians will gain
- Greater confidence in recognising early MSK changes in people with diabetes.
- A clearer understanding of how stiffness, weakness, and mobility loss affect pressure and ulcer risk.
- Simple assessment strategies for strength, mobility, balance, and function.
- Practical rehabilitation ideas to support lower-limb mobility and tissue resilience.
- A better understanding of how to manage exercise safely when ulcer risk is present.
- Case-based insight to help translate the evidence into day-to-day clinical decision-making.
Ideal for podiatrists, foot health practitioners, lower-limb specialists, diabetes care professionals, and allied healthcare clinicians, this webinar will help clinicians build a more confident, rehabilitation-focused approach to preserving movement, function, and quality of life in people living with diabetes.
Educator:
Hardeep Mehmi
Clinical Lead in Podiatric Biomechanics and MSK Podiatry
Hardeep Mehmi is an experienced podiatrist with over 27 years in specialist MSK, diabetes, and rheumatology care. He is known for his strong clinical expertise, service development skills, and commitment to delivering high‑quality education.
Find out more about our educatorsCOURSE FEATURES
Price
£25
Duration
90 minutes
Date
On Demand
CPD Accredited
No
Certificate
Yes
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