Have diabetes? Watch your feet! You need to prevent ulcers a sthe knock-on effects aren't good. Education is needed for the rising number of diabetic patients with reagrds their foot care. here's why

1. Can Diabetic Foot Care Education
Reduce Ulcers and Amputations?
Results From Study & Our
Recommendations
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2. Diabetes Can Mean Foot Ulcers
•  People with diabetes often suffer
from foot ulceration
•  It occurs more if they suffer from
peripheral neuropathy and/or
peripheral vascular disease
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3. How Do Ulcers & Amputation Impact?
People may suffer from:
• Physical disability
• Loss of quality of life
In addition...
• They may lose income, impacting on their
family lives
• NHS healthcare costs go up, which impacts on
us all
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4. So, what to do about foot care
education for diabetics?
We think health professionals can help
by educating diabetic people on how to
prevent them developing ulcers in the
first place.
Why?
The Foot Care Centre King’s Lynn Foot Care Training Courses

5. Common Sense & Study
It seems common sense to us but, in
addition, there was a systematic review
to examine patient education
programmes designed to prevent
diabetic foot ulcers.
Read on...
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6. The Study About Diabetic Foot Care
Education In Brief
• There were 11 randomised controlled trials
• In all, they studied more than two and a half
thousand adults who had type 1 or type 2
diabetes
• They compared the programmes with usual
care, bespoke care and no intervention
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7. What the Study Did
The study evaluated educational programmes that
were designed with reducing foot ulcer incidence in
mind.
They also looked at the incidence of recurrence of
ulcers, amputation, callus development, fungal
infection, and the number of hospital admissions
(and the duration of stays).
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8. Bias?
This type of study is at risk of bias.
The results were mixed and the conclusion
was that further studies need to show:
• Better methodology
• And explicitly define the content of the
packages/programmes
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9. Bias 2: What Goes in the Packages?
Any further studies would also need to
distinguish between:
• What is considered to be standard
education/information
• And the experimental programmes/packages
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10. Recommendations for Diabetic Foot
Care Education
Education alone won’t prevent foot
ulceration and amputations.
Nonetheless, raising patient awareness
on what will happen if they don’t look
after their feet pays an important part in
health care.
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11. On a Positive Note
Indications from the study are that
reductions in the incidence of ulcers
and amputation could be effected
by more comprehensive and
preventative interventions which
include specific education
programmes.
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12. What The Foot Care Centre
(King’s Lynn) Would Like to See
We would like to see:
Health professionals
(nurses, doctors, foot care and other
complementary therapists) offer
education and advice....
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13. Collaboration
Those who are not trained in anatomy
and physiology or diabetes could
approach health professionals for
materials to give to their clients and
patients
The materials would include the contact
details of the health professionals and
other people to contact.
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14. Get Advice if You Have Diabetes
Drop in and see us at The Foot Care
Centre King’s Lynn and we can give you
foot care advice and treatment.
We also recommend you have regular
checkups with your GP.
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15. Study Reference
Dorresteijn J et al (2010) Patient
education for preventing diabetic
foot ulceration
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16. By Elizabeth Dutton
Visit us at
The Foot Care Centre
King’s Lynn!
The Foot Care Centre King’s Lynn Foot Care Training Courses