In this week’s edition of the Heartbeat Blog, we will be exploring some of our CNA continuing education content. We have been working hard to get more courses approved by the California Department of Public Health (NAC approved CE # 1187). A sample of our current offerings are:

  1. Infection Control Guidelines for Long Term Care
  2. Assisting Residents with Heart Disease and Promoting Heart Health
  3. End of Life Care
  4. Understanding Diabetes Mellitus

Exploring Diabetes Type II

There are generally two types of diabetes. They used to be called adult and juvenile onset diabetes. However, as more and more youth have been diagnosed with “adult” onset diabetes, the name was changed to simply Type I (the old juvenile onset or insulin dependent diabetes) and Type II (previously called adult onset or sugar diabetes.)

Diabetes Mellitus Type II

Did you know?

Diabetes affects 8-10% of the entire population of the United States ~30,000,000 people! 1 in 4 people with diabetes don’t yet know they have it. Worldwide ~6.4 of all adults are living with diabetes.

Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States!

Diabetes disproportionally affects minorities! Incidence rates in the SEARCH study showed that in 2012 Diabetes Mellitus Type II affected 3.9/100,000 non-Hispanic whites, but 32.6/100,000 non-Hispanic blacks and 46.5/100,000 Native Americans.

The incidence of Diabetes Type II has more than tripled in the past 20 years and has closely followed our collective “waistlines.” Diabetes is soaring due to a combination of sedentary lifestyle and intense marketing campaigns for sugary foods and sodas.

Diabetes accounts for almost 15% of the United States’ entire health care expenditure! Much of this expense is spent on dealing with the effects of heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, eye disease and diabetic foot ulcers all at least partially caused by the vascular effects of Diabetes Type II.

Early screening saves lives and may alter the course and trajectory of Diabetes type II if lifestyle modifications are initiated early and adhered to.

To find out more about Diabetes, enroll in Project Heartbeat’s continuing education course titled, “ Understanding Diabetes Mellitus” today.