Patient Education: A Guide to Treating and Managing Type 2 Diabetes

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, aka the CDC, more than 11% of Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes. Which is why understanding Type 2 Diabetes and the treatment plan is so important for nurses to be able to communicate with their patients.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is when the body doesn’t produce 1) any insulin, 2) not enough insulin, or 3) not properly functioning insulin to carry glucose into the cells. Therefore, the glucose is left floating around in the blood which can lead to a number of problems.

For more information about Diabetes Type 1 and Type 2, be sure to visit Nursing Fundamentals: A Guide to Diabetes.

What is Type 2 Diabetes?

In Type 2 Diabetes, the patient can produce some insulin, but it either isn’t enough or it’s not functioning properly. Which means in most cases it goes undetected until adulthood since the body is able to do some or most, of its glucose carrying job, but not all of it.

Patient Education for Type 2 Diabetes

For patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus there are multiple treatments, since their body is producing some insulin naturally. It all depends on how much productive insulin the body is producing. These treatments include proper dieting and exercise, oral medications, and insulin injections. Let’s dive into the suitable patient education for each.

Monitoring Blood Sugar

First and foremost in patient education for Type 2 Diabetes is explaining to the patient what diabetes is and how to monitor it. Please visit Patient Education: A Guide to Treating and Managing Type 1 Diabetes for education on how to monitor blood sugar, a breakdown of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and how to use a glucose meter.

Diet & Exercise

Next come diet and exercise. Educating your patient on proper dieting and exercise is one of the most important parts of treating and managing Type 2 Diabetes. In fact, if the patient is dedicated to maintaining a proper diet and exercise routine, they may not have to take any additional medication to treat their diabetes!

Nutrition

As far as creating a proper diet goes, it would be best to schedule an appointment with a nutritionist. Someone who can sit down with the patient and answer any questions they may have is very valuable. Nutritionists will be able to go over things like meal planning, adequate food intake, and restricting calories. They will also educate your patient on calorie counting, managing lipid and glucose levels, and understanding carbohydrates. The nutritionist should also cover the importance of exercising around mealtime so there isn’t a worry of hypoglycemia while exercising.

After the appointment, go over any newly learned content and add anything the nutritionist, or the patient, might have missed. Stress the importance of never skipping meals, calorie counting, planning ahead, and exercise. Answer any additional questions they may have. If you don’t know the exact answer, get back in touch with the nutritionist and ask them.

Oral Medications

Sometimes even with scheduled dieting and exercise, it just isn’t enough, and the body needs a little something more. Instead of going straight to insulin injections, the doctor might prescribe an oral diabetic medication such as Metformin.

Metformin works by reducing the amount of glucose produced in the liver, thus requiring less insulin production in the pancreas. Remind the patient that Metformin should always be given with food. And to start taking Vitamin B and Folic Acid supplements to help with its absorption.

Insulin Injections

In some cases, diet and exercise along with the use of an oral hypoglycemic still might not cut it. In cases like these, the last resort treatment is insulin injections. Often times patients don’t want to have to inject themselves multiple times a day, so continue to educate on the importance of diet and exercise as this may result is less of a need for injected insulin.

Diabetic Complications

For a complete guide to insulin injection education and diabetes related complications, visit Patient Education: A Guide to Treating and Managing Type 1 Diabetes.

Do you work with Type 2 Diabetic patients? Comment below?

Plus be sure to visit the following for more nursing info:

• Nursing Bag Essentials for New Nurses
• What Do Night Shift Nurses Do? An Hourly Survival Guide
• Imposter Syndrome as a New Nurse
• Nursing Fundamentals: A Guide to Infection Control

And be sure to follow along with the Patient Education Series:

• How to Spot a Stroke and Save a Life
• How to Effectively Manage Acute and Chronic Pain
• Identifying Sepsis and Understanding its Care and Treatment
• What is Hypertension? Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments
• What is Heart Failure? Risk Factors, Symptoms, and Treatments
• What are Urinary Tract Infections? UTI Prevention and Treatments
• What is Asthma? Risk Factors, Symptoms, and Treatments
• What is COPD? Risk Factors, Symptoms, and Treatments
• What is Pneumonia? Symptoms, Labs, and Treatments

Referenced CDC diabetes statistics can be found here.