Successful diabetes care requires the systematic collaboration of professionals from different branches of medicine. The care team must be led by a physician who understands the fundamental principles of diabetes care and can coordinate other team members in their implementation. Those principles include ensuring glycemic control and preventing acute and chronic complications (Banasik & Copstead, 2018). Nurses play a vital role in achieving these outcomes through patient and family education, which focuses on lifestyle changes to reduce blood sugar levels. Nutrition is often considered “the cornerstone of diabetes therapy” (Banasik & Copstead, 2018, p. 828), necessitating the involvement of dieticians who can prescribe a diet and explain its necessity. Mental health professionals such as behavioral psychologists provide invaluable assistance in ensuring mental and emotional wellbeing and treatment compliance. Specialists like podiatrists and ophthalmologists are needed to treat severe symptoms connected to specific parts of the body. If pharmacological intervention is deemed necessary, the team will need to incorporate a pharmacist. The diabetes care team at my current workplace includes physicians, nurses, psychologists, and pharmacists, but is short on other specialists.
Diabetes is often accompanied by hypertension, which can aggravate its long-term consequences. Out of the best practices mentioned in the video, I think that increased physical activity holds the most promise for controlling diabetes. In addition to the well-attested role of exercise in controlling blood glucose levels, it offers general health benefits like weight reduction and reduced stress (Banasik & Copstead, 2018). Such benefits make patients more resilient to the effects of hypertension and diabetes. Physical exercise is also a relatively simple and safe treatment option that may remove the need for more drastic interventions. It can be incorporated in my practice by researching and prescribing appropriate exercises for patients with no contraindications.
References
Banasik, J L. & Copstead L-E. C. (2018). Pathophysiology. (6th ed.). Saunders.