Remaining Question: Does Exercise Improve Healing of Diabetic Foot Ulcers?

Abstract

Even though it is reasonable to think that exercise is beneficial to diabetic foot ulcer healing, there are currently no exercise recommendations for this population. A systematic review published recently attempted to answer this question. However, because of both the scarce and heterogenous literature on the subject identified by the selected study design and the chosen quality appraisal tool that is too permissive and overestimates the treatment effects, no clinical recommendations can be drawn from this review. We advocate for research on this topic in order to obtain more direct evidence that exercise benefits wound healing, and to close the persistent gap of knowledge regarding the impact of exercise on diabetic foot ulcer wound healing.