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Assignment: Telehealth as an Intervention for Diabetes and Other Chronic Diseases

Diabetes Mellitus (DM), a chronic metabolic condition commonly known as diabetes type 2, affects the body’s ability to process blood sugar, leading to increased blood sugar levels. Complications from diabetes is the cause of the rise in the number of deaths of people suffering from diabetes mellitus. Some of the complications associated with this chronic disease include cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and eye problems, including blindness, neuropathy, foot ulceration, and foot amputation (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2019). Therefore, the US has different interventions to reduce the increased mortality rate because of diabetes mellitus. One of these interventions is the use of telehealth to help with the increased awareness and education of the entire population to help address the growing number of death cases because of diabetes mellitus and its complications. Reducing the risk of and death cases of diabetes mellitus includes incorporating telehealth as an intervention strategy to help patients with diabetes mellitus by creating awareness, monitoring, providing dietary plans as well as physical activity sessions.

Understanding Tele-health

Technological advancements and innovations have led healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals to look into innovations that help with ensuring that each person, whether in rural or urban centers, has access to healthcare services. Tele-health is one of these services rendered to help ensure an appropriation of health services is evenly dispersed to all. Cohen et al. (2019) explain that telehealth is a process through which patients with certain diseases and ailments can get information dispersed through electronic systems that help with the continued gain of information and healthcare services. Tele-health provides information that helps create interventions for people with diabetes mellitus to reduce cases of diabetes mellitus and reduces the mortality rate.

Tele-health as an Educative Intervention

To help enlighten and educate people on the problems associated with diabetes mellitus, telehealth has become an appropriate tool for communication and education. Through telehealth, governments have monitored areas within countries where there are more cases present of diabetes mellitus than others have. Research shows that through telehealth, remote, rural, and areas with disadvantaged people have increased in people with diabetes mellitus over areas where people live affluently (Siopis et al., 2020). In the US, people from the African- American, Hispanic, Asian- American, and Native- American races are at a higher risk of contracting the disease than Whites in the US, as these races have been estimated to have a bigger likelihood of contracting diabetes mellitus. Therefore, showing that telehealth helps create charts and information to help with government interventions on diabetes mellitus cases.

Information gathered from telehealth on areas with most diabetes mellitus is used to plan strategies to reduce diabetes mellitus cases effectively. Part of these strategies includes the production and dispersion of educative material on chronic illness. Therefore, in conjunction with the government, healthcare organizations will use this information to appropriate strategies to effectively reduce mortality rate cases of people with diabetes mellitus and associated complications (Siopis et al., 2020). Through telehealth services, educative material is made and dispersed to people in remote, rural, and areas with disadvantaged areas to help cultivate ways to curb diabetes mellitus cases appropriately. People with access to mobile applications and the internet in these areas will have a chance to access newsletters and periodicals that help them learn more about the emerging trends towards medication, treatment, and prevention strategies of diabetes mellitus. Ultimately, telehealth works as an educative tool to help dispense and disperse information that helps with better living and prevention plans to reduce diabetes mellitus cases.

Dietary Plans and Physical Activity Interventions through Tele-health

Telehealth is an appropriate tool for creating exercise and dietary plans for people having diabetes mellitus. Müller et al. (2016) explain that the rise of diabetes mellitus cases in people has led to increased needed interventions towards curbing the disease. With the innovations in technology, telehealth has helped dispense ways in which physical activity and exercise can be a part of the daily routine for people with diabetes.  Shubrook et al. (2018) explain that most people at risk of contracting diabetes mellitus are obese people. Telehealth services will increase physical activities by creating physical exercise applications that people can use at these applications from the comfort of their homes (Müller et al., 2016). Obese people should go through physical activities to reduce their body weight and keep them fit. While reducing their body weight through physical activity, obese people open pathways for air and blood circulation that help with proper blood flow and nutrient distribution through blood sugar that offers the body energy to perform tasks (Shubrook et al., 2018). The production of applications that incorporate fitness challenges aimed at bodyweight reduction will help obese people have better exercises and physical activities tailored to them, regarding their desired body mass index (BMI) and how they will help them reach the bodyweight goal. Ultimately, physical exercises through telehealth applications will help reduce cases of diabetes mellitus.

Ramadas et al. (2018) explain that dietary plans are as important as physical activities in the interventions to increase diabetes mellitus. Tele-health helps create information on dietary plans that can help people maintain good health and curb diabetes mellitus in countries. Through a combination of supervised and well-planned diets from nutritionists and dieticians, dietary plans can be dispensed through applications made suited for specific people. Ultimately, dieticians and nutritionists, with the incorporation of innovative technologies, will develop applications and ways of dispensing information technologically that allows the creation of telehealth services that promote reduced diabetes mellitus cases and reduced mortality rates in diabetes and diabetes mellitus complication cases. Conclusively, telehealth is important in providing information that promotes physical activities and dietary plans that will increase the reduced rates of diabetes mellitus in society.

Tele-health Gestational Diabetes Interventions

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes type 2 that affects pregnant women with hypertension and vasoconstriction, leading to increased blood sugar in the mother’s blood system. Hence, the mother is diagnosed with gestational diabetes that becomes a part of them as they continue living and affects them. Tele-health will help make electronic information that helps women find stress-free environments and ways of managing stress that will lead to hypertension and eventually gestational diabetes. Sushko et al. (2021) emphasize that through telehealth, pregnant women can learn about self-monitoring methods that allow them to go through the pregnancy successfully without contracting gestational diabetes. These self-monitoring processes include monitoring blood glucose to ensure that the pregnant woman is within the desired ranges (Sushko et al., 2021). Also, telehealth will work effectively towards promoting educational materials to midwives on upcoming trends that they should use in educating pregnant mothers in rural, remote, and disadvantaged areas on the best ways of self-management when at home and following through on healthy diets and dietary plans for pregnant women. Ultimately, telehealth will be an appropriate intervention in helping pregnant mothers avoid being diagnosed with gestational diabetes and help in healthy pregnancies and safe deliveries without any complications.

Conclusion

Tele-health is continued technological innovation and advancement that has helped healthcare centers and healthcare practitioners develop ways to reach people with chronic diseases in remote, rural, and disadvantaged areas. Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic condition can be managed, and incidences of cases and deaths associated with the condition reduced across the US and entire world by incorporating strategies that help in physical activities, dietary plans, self-monitoring, and education to the public on dangers and prevention strategies against diabetes mellitus. Ultimately, telehealth through technological advancements helps in ensuring that cases of diabetes mellitus are contained and maintained. Such interventions look into better dietary plans, physical activity, the medication that helps with managing early detection, providing pregnant women with stress-free environments, and racial education on the dangers of diabetes mellitus by governments. With the end goal of managing diabetes mellitus using modern technology available through telehealth services, the continued interventions will help reduce the number of death cases associated with diabetes mellitus while increasing the US and global civilian population on healthy living.