Thiruvananthapuram: Most diabetes patients, who are on insulin therapy, practise wrong injection practices, leading to increased doses of medications and treatment failure quite often.
A study presented by Jothydev’s Diabetes Research Centre at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), San Diego, California, the other day revealed that 75 per cent patients went wrong in at least 10 of the insulin injection techniques such as choosing correct insulin injection sites, systematic rotation of injection sites and changing needles as recommended.
Continuous diabetes education and training are mandatory to ensure that patients adopt correct insulin injection practices. The study demonstrated improvements in injection techniques as well as diabetes control when patients were given brief education sessions. When they were reassessed after six months, their three-month average blood glucose (HbA1c) decreased by 15 per cent, fasting blood glucose by 12 per cent and post-meal glucose by 19 per cent.
The dosage of insulin injections reduced by 22 per cent in comparison to previous dosage.
“Kerala population diabetes burden is 25 per cent, requiring measures and guidelines to make patients aware of benefits of practising correct insulin injection techniques and strict compliance,” said Dr Jothydev Kesavadev, who led the study.
Others on the study team were Dr Arun Shankar, Dr Ashwin David Ashok, Ms Lakshmy Ramachandran, Ms Sunitha Jothydev, Ms Gopika Krishnan and Ms Geethu Sanal.
