Diabetesrepresents one of most serious public health disease. The aim of the Metabolink
project was to develop a smart solution for elderly people with diabetes and
obesity, in order to promote a healthier style of life, improve diabetic
control trying to reduce overall cost for the community.
It
consists of an app for Smartphone linked to a system and a process of data
collection based on bi dimensional barcode (qr code) and NFC-tag technologies.
Thesystem was accepted by all the patients and they learned efficaciously in a few
hours to use it. Unfortunately we observed a drop-out of about 50% in the first
month. Patients remaining in the study refer a slight improvement in the
Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire (Q-LES-Q) and General
Satisfaction Questionnaire (GSQ) and they decided to continue to use it after
the end of the follow-up.
The diabetes
represents one of most serious public health disease for the planet. The
WHO estimated about 60 million of subjects are affected in Europe. In Italy the
rough prevalence is 5.8%. The prevalence of disease in the next years will
grow both as a result of the aging of the population and to the increase of the
risk factors such as overweight and obesity, sedentary lifestyle and lack of
proper nutrition education. Milestone studies have shown that an intensive
glycemic treatment significantly reduces microvascular complications with
a moderate positive long-term effect on macrovascular complications. The
health care systems are called to face this disease that it has not only direct
cost linked to pharmacological and complications treatment but also an indirect
significant social cost. It is therefore essential for the diabetic patient
to carry out a continuous and accurate monitoring of clinically relevant
parameters (as blood glucose, blood pressure) and to follow a health life style
in order to reduce disease complications permitting to live better maintaining
independence for much more longer time. Moreover the majority of patients with
diabetes is older and frequently present significant comorbidity making the
integrated management of the disease more complex.
The aim of the Metabolink
project was to develop a smart solution for elderly people with diabetes and
obesity, in order to promote a healthier style of life, improve diabetic
control (glcaemic control, blood pressure, adherence to a specific diet and
treatment) trying to reduce overall cost for the community. The approval of the
study for experiments using human subjects was obtained from the local Ethics
Committees on human experimentation. Written informed consent for research was
obtained from each patient or from relatives/legal guardian in the case of
critically disabled demented patients prior to participation in the study.
No comments:
Post a Comment