Post about "Diabetes"

Health and Fitness Goal Setting

Why do so many people set goals but never achieve them? The reason is because they never have a strategy to follow.Use the S.M.A.R.T Way to achieve your Health and Fitness Goal.S.M.A.R.T.SpecificYour goal needs to be stated in great detail and very specific, for example, instead of saying “I want to lose weight in the next four months”, you should be very specific with a realistic weight loss number, such as “I want to lose 12 pounds in 12 weeks”Next stepAction plan, what are you going to do on a weekly and daily basis to achieve this goal.For e.g. I will exercise in the morning at the gym with my personal trainer in st johns wood before work at 7.30 am.”Keep it simple but consistent”MeasurableFor e.g. – heightened awareness of how certain clothes fit.AttainableEstablish goals which are important to you and can be achieved in small attainable steps. For e.g.Set aside gym time during the weekMake nutritional changes.(drink 8 glasses of water a day)RealisticRealistic goals that can be achieved in a certain time period ensure success For e.g. lose 1-2 pounds a week, not ½ stone.Time – orientedCommitting to a specific time frame increases successful goal achievement. Commit to achieve a specific goal by a certain time and do your best to achieve it in that time frame.If that time period ends without achieving that goal, don’t lose the passion. Step back and take an honest look at what happened, then set up another plan to achieve that goal in a safe and specific time frame

Workplace Mental Health – A Series – Program Integration (Start Today!)

Good mental health is fundamental to maintaining good physical health. And you want your employees to experience total worker health, correct?The fact that the mind and the body cannot be separated results in an inseparable relationship between physical and mental health. Despite the fact that the connections are striking, integration of the two fields in worksite wellness programming still has not occurred in any meaningful way. Worksite wellness practitioners need to better understand the connections between physical and mental health so they can intervene more effectively with employees to improve the outcomes in both areas.It is important to address the integration of physical and mental health for the following reasons:• The individual employee’s mental health status or the presence of a mental illness such as depression or anxiety can affect an individual’s ability to undertake health promoting behaviors that address their physical health status. It is therefore critical that individuals have a better understanding of the integral link between all aspects of their health.• Chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer can have a profound impact on an individual’s mental health.• An individual’s mental health status affects an individual’s ability to participate in their treatment and recovery from a chronic disease.• Family members and caregivers of people with chronic diseases are also affected psychologically thereby potentially resulting in their neglecting their own health.Integrating all aspects of health within a worksite wellness program requires partnerships and integration at multiple levels. Integration and partnerships allow the partners to leverage their strengths and resources and to work on common goals. Integration needs to occur at the program level, the policy level, between vendors and potentially between the employer and community based resources.The elements necessary to support integration include:• Making the business case through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on the interrelationships between all aspects of employee health. The data should also show how integration and partnerships can better advance the employer’s core mission and objectives.• Developing a champion at every level within the organization. While integration requires leadership and motivation from the top, it is best to have a champion at each level to initiate, implement, and sustain the integration.• Forming an integration management working team to sustain the integration effort. The integration effort cannot be sustained if it is only the work of just a couple of people.• Developing integrated interventions that are based on identified needs or gaps where positive outcomes and early wins can be achieved. Early on, look for interventions that are simple, targeted, and within the scope of the missions, resources, infrastructures, processes of the partners’ existing program initiatives.• Monitor, measure and evaluate integrated initiatives by establishing goals, measures and collecting the appropriate data. Evaluation could include process, output and outcome types of evaluation strategies. They could include assessing improvements in access to and satisfaction with care, services, or programming, determining the effect of policy changes on outcomes or services, and making the case for cost-benefit and/or cost-effectiveness.Programming is one of the key areas where integration can and should be implemented. The four levels we see for physical health programming can also be applied to other health areas as well. These are: awareness, education, lifestyle change and policy/environmental change.The traditional core physical health programming topics have included physical activity, nutrition, sleep and stress management. These four core programming areas also have implications for mental health as well. This makes the leap to integrated programming real easy. Prevention and self-care activities are also areas where integration can be applied.Good mental health is fundamental to maintaining good physical health. Ultimately, there is no health without mental health. A worksite wellness program is a necessary and ideal venue to support program integration.

What is Charcot’s Foot that Occurs in Diabetes?

Charcot’s foot is one of the many problems which might occur in those with diabetes mellitus. The higher blood sugar levels that stem from all forms of diabetes have an affect on numerous body systems including the eyesight, renal system as well as nerves. In long standing cases, particularly if there has been an unsatisfactory control of the blood sugar levels, you can find problems with the nerves supplying the feet. This will make the feet in danger of issues as if something fails, you don’t know it has gone wrong as you can not really feel it due to the harm to the nerves. This might be something as simple as standing on a rusty nail and that getting contaminated and you are not aware that you’ve stood on the nail. Should it be a blister or ingrown toenail which gets infected and you do not know that it is present on the foot unless you have a look. This is why foot care can be so necessary for those with diabetes and why it will be provided a great deal of emphasis. A Charcot foot is the destruction occurring to the bones and joints if you have an injury and you do not know that the injury has happened.

A way of looking at it could be to consider this way: pretend that you sprain your ankle horribly and you also are not aware that you have simply because you do not experience the pain from it. You then carry on and walk around on it. Picture all of the additional harm which you do by walking about on it. The earliest you may possibly discover that there may be something wrong happens when you take a seat and look at the feet and you observe that one is a great deal more swollen compared to the other foot. This is exactly what occurs in individuals with diabetes who develop a Charcot’s foot. There may be some destruction, such as a sprained ankle or maybe a progressive failure of the arch of the foot and as no pain is sensed they carry on and walk around on it. It should be apparent simply how much more injury that gets done to the original injury prior to the problem is finally observed because of the swelling. At times there is not much swelling, but the Charcot’s foot is picked up from the difference in temperature between the two feet as a result of inflammation related process in the damaged foot that generates more warmth.

The development of a Charcot foot really needs to be dealt with as a bit of an urgent situation since the further it advances the much more serious it’s going to be and the more challenging it can be to handle. The individual definitely needs to quit all weightbearing without delay or at least obtain a walking support so that the damage is protected. For the not too major instances and those conditions which were serious and have improved a really supportive orthotic in the footwear is required to support the feet and the injuries. Sometimes surgical procedures are required to straighten the subluxed and dislocated bones. By far the most critical situations can end up with the foot and/or leg required to be amputated as the trauma has been doing an excessive amount of impairment.