Educate patients, families, and strengthen community prevention strategies, rather than an essential tool constitutes the key to dealing with the diabetes epidemic, a chronic non -transmissible disease with which more than one million ofpeople.
"Education is not part of the management of diabetes, education is the management itself of diabetes," Dr. Manuel Vera González, an consulting professor at the Institute of Endocrinology, remembering the words he said at such early as such as early as1923, one of the pioneers of this specialty, Elliot P. Joslin.
Just on this subject and the best strategies to educate young patients suffering from this disease, the interviewee, also pediatric endocrinologist, also intervened in the IX Cuban Congress of Endocrinology, which develops until next Friday the La Pradera International Center.
According to the specialist, in our country, although the National Diabetes Registry is not yet completed, it is estimated that there are around 1,000 children and young people below 15 years with this condition;And there could be talk of an increase in the debut of children under five years with this disease.
Stress, inappropriate lives styles, the consumption of so -called scrap meals, non -healthy and balanced diet during pregnancy, sedentary lifestyle, among others, are factors that in the expert's opinion facilitate that those people, which were already predisposedTo the pathology, they have greater possibilities of developing diabetes, in addition to earliest ages.
However, the interviewee pointed out, it is not enough to educate our young people and the rest of the population in the importance of knowing the multiple risk factors, but in knowing what to do when we are exposed to these elements, to the consequences that they carry, say the disease.
In that sense, families especially mentioned.In every home where there is a person with a chronic disease, the so -called inappropriate family situations occur, said the expert, which can be due to rejection, permissiveness, tolerance ... and that do not allow adequate management, for example, of the condition of diabetes.These are aspects that the health team must learn to detect and help them exceed, specified.
He commented that next year the 25th anniversary of the coexistence for children and young people with diabetes will be held, an initiative that consists of a day hospital admission, where young people attend in the morning and leave in the afternoon;But they are accompanied by their parents and relatives which is an advantage to be able to detect these types of situations, as well as dysfunctional families, overprotection and another series of aspects, explained the teacher.
The benefits, he said, are multiple.Because it's about educating the patient, and his family too.
«With coexistence we realize that we could stimulate and educate mothers and fathers too, and that they were a way to make it very efficient, but of a short period.And the rest of the time they were without educating?
From there, said Dr. Vera González arose the idea of creating the group endulz me life, not the body, a project that is already seven years old, and that on the last Saturday of each month, at nine in the morning, in the centerDiabetic care becomes a learning space - for children, young people, adults and their relatives - about the most dissimilar topics: hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, piercings, tattoos, sexuality and pregnancy, obstacles in the lives of people with people withDiabetes, myths and realities about the disease ...
«But the important thing about this group is that the issues prepare and expose them, we are the advisors, those who help them;And we have seen how boys increase theirSelf -esteem, knowledge and are becoming health promoters for different activities in the community, ”said the interviewee.
«They also learn that diabetes, only prevents you from what you are not able to do, and that the limitations are set by yourself, not diabetes.There are plenty of examples of people with diabetes who are scientists, athletes, musicians ... It is a land where society must also detach from certain stereotypes, of believing that someone cannot do something just because it has the disease, ”said the specialist.
Education is placed in the center of that fight, emphasized the doctor.«If they do not know the risks, if they are not taught how to live with pathology, logically patients will do inappropriate things, but just as important is to accept the new condition.It is what guarantees success, because once we are aware of the disease there is a better quality of life, and this is not achieved, but educating ».
With the control of diabetes, the lives of many people are decided, while this is a tributary of cerebrovascular diseases.A better education then results in a more appropriate management that avoids the numerous complications it can cause.
