During October 30th to November 2nd 2006, Kuwait University organized The International Diabetes Conference under the subject " global Aspects of Diabetes". Kuwait Committee of Biomedical Engineers (KCBME) participated throughTechnical papers and leaflets that provided information about the latest Biomedical Technology in the field of Diabetes. It also provided many solutions and methods to improve the diagnosis and treatment of Diabetic patients. These Technology will be a huge benefit if the physicians and medical staff are willing to get trained and updated continuously. Post your feedback if you have new Biomedical Technology that helps in the field of Diabetes and the best way to train the end-user.
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Glucose Monitoring
Diabetes mellitus is a common disease known as "Diabetes". It prevents the body from making or using insulin. Insulin aids in converting sugar, which is mainly glucose, into energy to keep the body alive. There are two main types of diabetes; type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is common in children and young adults, and type 2 is common among adults over the age of 45. Both types could be fatal if continues glucose monitoring is not performed on a regular daily schedule (FDA, 2006).
There are mainly two types of glucose monitoring; non-invasive and invasive. There is also a third type, semi-invasive, and it's a combination of both types. The Blood Glucose Meter is a good example of an invasive glucose monitoring device; a drop of blood is withdrawn from the patient and placed on a small strip, and the device reads it and displays the amount of glucose contained in the sample (FDA, 2006). Biomedical engineers have discovered new ways to monitor glucose in the blood by integrating the field of nanotechnology into it (McShane 2006).
Dr. Michael McShane, associate professor for the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has completed a project entitled "Novel Micro/Nano Approaches to Glucose Measurement with pH-Sensitive Hydrogels," and it's also called "Swell Gels" as a secondary title. According to Dr. McShane, "The project will demonstrate the ability of enzyme-modified hydrogels to respond specifically to glucose in a stable, consistent manner, and the coupling of these gels to mechanical-optical readout systems employing both microcantilever and resonance energy transfer techniques. The response of the transducers to glucose will be optimized for sensitivity and range to produce high accuracy over physiological concentrations (0-600mg/dL). The studies will develop novel integrated sensing materials and readout techniques for chemical measurement systems, specifically glucose sensors. The work will test the hypothesis that nanoparticle carriers will provide an efficient, stable means of encapsulating enzymes in hydrogels, and that both microcantilevers and fluorescence energy transfer systems can be used to transducer hydrogel volume changes with glucose levels. As such, the studies will test new concepts toward developing useful glucose monitoring devices, and will also produce novel sensor instrumentation schemes that are general in applicability and easily modified for other species (McShane, 2006)."
In other words, in the upcoming years, doctors will be able to implant these swell gels underneath the skin in order for diabetes patients to monitor their glucose concentrations in a consistent matter without the use of needles and blood strips. The patient will need some sort of fluorescence light device, a small flash light device for example, that could apply the fluorescence light onto the swell gels to obtain readouts on the glucose concentrations. Figure 1 shows the different readouts of the swell gels after applying the fluorescence light.
Figure 1: The different types of readouts of the swell gels after applying the fluorescence light (e.g. “adapted from McShane, 2006”).
Hopefully with this new type of glucose monitoring technology, diabetes patients will have a better control of their condition to inhibit the many serious health problems that are caused by diabetes. This new technology could also be applied to other species as well.
Ameinfo reported: Kuwait's Ministry of Health is to spend $107.8m on 11 programmes according to Al Watan and cited by the Kuwait Times. Plans include the purchase of mobile diabetic units, the building of more diabetic clinics as well as the funding of various awareness campaigns. Some of the money will go towards staff development.
Plesae provide your opinion on this issue:
Is this another government stunt that will die away quickly and be waist of money? or will it really work as inteded?
Will the erected facilities be maintaned to last for more than a generation?
Very interesting, Dr McShane was my "Signals and Systems" professor.
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