Get Grounded

Let's re-visit not reports of the latest and greatest tools and small success stories but articles that focus on the bigger vision-technology needs in diabetes, goals to aim for….

"Diabetes and Aging." In: National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse. (2002). Diabetes Dateline, Spring: 9-10.

Half of the 16 million Americans who living with diabetes are over age 60. This article points out the many ways in which diabetes must be managed differently with age and complications in the elderly avoided.
This article is available online at: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/about/dateline/spri02/8.htm

"The Last Word: A 'Touch' of Diabetes?," by Christopher Saudek, MD, in FDA Consumer magazine (Jan.-Feb.2002).
This article is available online at: www.fda.gov/fdac/departs/2002/102_word.html

The author, past president of the American Diabetes Association, notes the need to take a less casual attitude to diabetes treatment and voices a plea to look seriously at what's available for diabetics today. He says: "Better drugs, better meters, insulin pens and pumps translate into better self-care and fewer complications. And 'too complicated' almost never applies: very little is too complicated for the average patient, and they need all the help they can get."

Kinsella, A. (2000). Home Healthcare: Wired and Ready for Telemedicine, The Second Generation. (Sunriver, OR, Information For Tomorrow).

New approaches to treating diabetes in the community are discussed in detail. These approaches include shopping tours and explanations by diabetic educators in neighborhood supermarkets; and cooking classes to teach diabetically correct foods, in this case, to African American diabetic women in a Baptist church kitchen.

Kinsella, A. (2003). Home Telehealthcare: Process, Policy, and Procedures. (Kensington, MD: Information For Tomorrow).

Chapter 4 focuses on diabetes telecare and telecare planning, with less focus on the tools (they're only glucose meters and telephones, not replacements for nurses) and more on the providers' work with the patients based on demonstrated and/or personal need expressed by patients (appropriate times of day to contact patients for productive televisits, preferable length of visits, amount of information provided in one session, and so on).

Back to Community of Care