INTRODUCTION: Talk test is widely accepted and costless subjective tool for exercise intensity prescription. However, its utility in diabetes rehabilitation is unexplored. Therefore, the objective of present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of talk test based aerobic exercise on pulmonary function test (PFT) and quality of life (QOL) among adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). MATERIAL AND METHODS: 90 patients were assigned to three groups: Talk Test Group (TTG = 30), Rating of Perceived Exertion Group (RPEG = 30), and Control Group (CG = 30). 8 weeks of supervised training was followed by 4 weeks of unsupervised exercise at home for both the experimental groups. Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Forced Expiratory Volume at 1st second (FEV1) were measures of PFT. QOL was assessed through World Health Organization Quality of Life-brief Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). RESULTS: PFT improvement in TTG and RPEG is superior to CG. However, there is no significant between group difference (p > 0.05). Further, the effect size in TTG was lesser than RPEG from baseline to 8 week, 1.21 versus 1.46 and 1.42 versus 1.56 respectively for FVC and FEV1. However, it was more in TTG ie, 1.26 and 1.08 in comparison to RPEG ie, 0.51 and 0.57 respectively for FVC and FEV1 from 8 week to 12 week. The improvement in all the domains of QOL was significantly high in TTG and RPEG (p < 0.01) as compared to CG. CONCLUSIONS: The PFT and QOL among adults with T2DM can be improved through the aerobic exercise based on talk test. Additionally, talk test based exercise is more effective than RPE based exercise during unsupervised sessions.

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