Type 2 Diabetes: Preventing Complications
The Bottom Line
Our survey of CDEs and the questions we asked AccessWorld Extra readers were informal surveys and do not provide hard scientific evidence. However, they do provide strong anecdotal evidence that health care providers are unaware of the existence of accessible HBPMs. Although they are obviously aware of the importance of blood pressure monitoring for their patients with diabetes, health care providers are not passing that information on to their patients who are visually impaired in an effective manner. Simply telling a person who is visually impaired to monitor his or her blood pressure at home does no good unless an accessible monitor is recommended. Relying on pharmacies to provide these HBPMs is also ineffective because the demand for accessible HBPMs needs to increase before pharmacies will regularly stock them. Currently, accessible HBPMs with speech output are sold only at specialty stores, such as Independent Living Aids and Maxi-Aids.
One particularly disturbing finding was that three of the nine diabetes educators recommended that their patients who are visually impaired get help from a sighted person, rather than learn self-care for their diabetes. Also, several of the educators we contacted said that they were unwilling to participate in the survey because they were inexperienced in working with people who are visually impaired. It seems that diabetes educators experience a level of discomfort in teaching self-care to people who are visually impaired. Their discomfort could inhibit proper diabetes self-care for their patients. A great deal of work goes into properly managing diabetes, and if you have to rely on sighted assistance every step of the way, it will most likely not be done properly. Individuals must take full responsibility for managing their own diabetes, so it is essential that they be able to do so independently.
The findings of our survey point out that there is a large gap between the theory of proper diabetes management and what is actually practiced by the health care professionals who treat people who are visually impaired. There must be both more accessible diabetes management devices on the market and more awareness among health care professionals of what is available. Diabetes educators must also become more comfortable and practiced in teaching self-care to the increasing number of people who are visually impaired who have diabetes. How can someone properly and independently manage his or her diabetes if health care professionals are unaware of how it can be done? If health care professionals were more aware of how to treat and advise their patients who are visually impaired, perhaps these individuals would purchase the few accessible products that are on the market. The pharmaceutical industry might then realize that there is a real demand for accessible products and decide to serve this overlooked market.
We at AFB certainly do not have all the answers to how the knowledge and awareness of health care providers can be improved, but we will continue to work to increase the accessibility of diabetes self-care devices. We always send the results of our product evaluations directly to the manufacturers and ask for their comments. We also publish our results in the medical journal Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, and we attend the journal's annual conference and present our results at poster sessions. In addition, AccessWorld Solutions, the consulting arm of AFB, is working with manufacturers of diabetes devices to show them how to design their products with accessibility in mind. We also ask that you, our AccessWorld readers, do what you can to help educate your health care providers. Mention to them that accessible self-care devices do exist and that with proper training, people who are visually impaired can indeed manage their own health care independently.
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