Type 2 Diabetes: Preventing Complications
Diabetes Management and Visual Impairment: Are People Aware of Accessible Home Blood Pressure Monitors?
By Taine Duncan and Darren Burton
As has been reported previously in AccessWorld, diabetes is a serious health concern with a close relationship to vision loss. Because of this close relationship, one would assume that self-care devices would be accessible and that people who are visually impaired could use them independently as part of their diabetes care regimens. However, the three previous articles painted a different picture. As reported in the September 2002, issue out of the roughly 30 blood glucose monitors on the market, only 1 uses modern technology and is accessible, but its price is 10 times that of the inaccessible monitors. In our March 2004 issue, none of the insulin pumps that were evaluated was found to be accessible.
Our September 2004 issue, reported that three accessible home blood pressure monitors (HBPMs) with speech output were taken off the market by their manufacturers because they were not selling. Currently, there are only two HBPMs on the market that use the more accurate upper-arm technology and have speech-output capabilities--the A&D Medical UA-767T (reviewed in the September 2004 article) and the Maxi-Aids Reizen (formerly known as the Shengfu SF860, which was discussed in the sidebar to that article; see the Product Information section of this article for contact information for ordering these monitors).
Currently, there are only two HBPMs on the market using the most accurate technology that have speech-output capabilities--the A&D Medical UA-767T (top) and the Maxi-Aids Reizen (bottom).
Those of us at AccessWorld and AFB TECH (the American Foundation for the Blind Technology and Employment Center at Huntington, West Virginia) were curious why there are so few options available for people who are visually impaired to manage their diabetes independently. We assumed that because one-third of Americans with diabetes also have some degree of vision loss, manufacturers would be eager to compete for that large market sector. Perhaps manufacturers have simply overlooked this market, but perhaps there is simply not enough demand by people who are visually impaired. We were particularly interested in the case of HBPMs. Why would three of the accessible monitors be taken off the market at a time when research studies and physicians have stated that monitoring blood pressure is as important as monitoring blood sugar for people with diabetes? Are health care providers not passing this information on to people who are visually impaired? Are they not recommending accessible HBPMs? Do they know that accessible HBPMs exist? Is that why there is not enough demand for accessible products?
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