The key to good diabetes care
India is currently considered the diabetes capital of the world, with approximately 20% of adults in Delhi suffering from it. The mean age of type 2 diabetes is approximately 35 years, signifying that this disease is now primarily impacting the younger and economically productive age group.
According to one of our published research, more than 50% of people with type 2 diabetes suffer from depression and are distressed in their day-to-day life.
The two important pillars for any chronic disease like diabetes are education and self-empowerment.
In diabetes management, both patient as well as the spouse and/or family members need to be actively involved and empowered. When a person develops diabetes, it is an opportunity for other family members, too, to improve their diet and lifestyle.
According to a published paper, family and spousal support can make a lot of impact on good diabetes care and decrease long-term complications. It is very important to educate a patient and family members about the disease, its treatment and complications.
Shared decision-making between the healthcare team, patient, and family members on every aspect is the most important part of successful diabtetes management. Diet, exercise plan, and activities should be flexible and individualised according to the daily schedule of the person. The patient should be actively involved in all decision making, including the choice of medications.
Understanding the financial burden of treatment is also very important in our country. Blood glucose (sugar) goals should be decided based on lot of factors — including age of patient, baseline complications and family support.
Patient and caregivers need to be empowered to have some form of blood glucose monitoring at home as well as to adjust dose of medications and insulin based on that.
This has to be learned from your diabetes care team and can lead to significant decrease in number of unnecessary visits to hospitals, including emergency visits.
Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) education is an integral part of any diabetes education. Also, it is the onus of the family members to ensure that the person living with diabetes does not feel left out during the festivals. Eating and enjoying responsibly is the way forward.
Team work between patient, family members, and health care team — including endocrinologist (diabetes superspecialist), dieticians, and diabetes educators — can do a wonderful job to help people with diabetes live a happy, healthy, and normal life.
Dr Deepak Khandelwal MD (AIIMS), DM (AIIMS) is senior consultant endocrinologist and diabetes superspecialist at Dr Khandelwal’s Diabetes & Endocrinology Clinic, Paschim Vihar, Delhi. Contact: khandelwalaiims@gmail.com, www.deepakkhandelwal.com, 9953082480, 9650647030.
DISCLAIMER: The veracity of any health claim made in the above article is the responsibility of the concerned hospital/ doctor.