Hello Diabetes: Why Diabetes Education is important...?

If the management of diabetes is being presumed as a “Table”, it will have 4 pillars, 1st is Diet, 2nd is Exercise, 3rd pillar is Drugs (Insulin & Oral drugs), 4th pillar is Monitoring. But, despite all four pillars in place, the table is incomplete without a Table-Top, this tabletop is “Education.”Education plays a key role in the management of diabetes. Without education, the prescription of diabetes is incomplete. Every clinician, nurse or paramedical staff involved in diabetes care, can focus on educating people for better management of diabetes and can play the role of a successful educator. With the growing burden of diabetes, it is imperative to empower people with evidence-based knowledge and help them to live a healthy and happy life with diabetes. Education can be One to One, in a small group, in a conference hall and for masses through radio, print media, television and social media. It can be conducted in a small clinic, corporate/government hospitals, rural/ urban health care centers, in different offices, and at public places like parks, with/without the help of NGOs. Education is needed at different phases of the transition of diabetes, like from very early childhood to adolescence, adult, during a change of job, marriage, pregnancy, menopause, elderly etc. A key focus of diabetes education involves lifestyle changes (Diet, Exercise, weight & stress management), annual screening for target organs, compliance of medicines and visits to treating doctor, management of acute complications like hypoglycemia or ketosis at home etc.Sunil’sDiabetes Care n’ Research Centre (DCRC) is actively involved in educating society under the banner of “Hello Diabetes” for the last 30 years. Apart from the general population, we also focus on specific groups like Juvenile Diabetes(JD-Con), Couple Diabetes, Gestational Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes and so on. DCRC & DCFI (Diabetes Care Foundation of India) also create diabetes educators through a certificate course NDEP (National Diabetes Educators Program) and take annual conferences for Nurses (Nu-Con), for Women (Wo-Con), for educators (DE-Con) and Hello Diabetes Academia for doctors. Hello Diabetes Education is also done through the YouTube channel & Podcast of Dr Sunil Gupta.