Can Smarter Technology Have An Impact In Diabetic Foot Remission?

With the dangerous complications diabetes can cause, including amputation and mortality, could smarter technology reduce the risk for complications?

I really think we are approaching a time when the line is completely blurred between medical devices and consumer electronics. That was really on display with the podcast I did with Davide Vigano, CEO of Sensoria, on NPR’s Tech Nation with Moira Gunn, PhD.¹ We discussed technology and wearables for patients with diabetes.

As my colleagues and I noted in a recent manuscript in the New England Journal of Medicine, the mortality rate following a diabetes-related amputation is more than 70 percent at five years for patients with diabetes.² In addition, the mortality rate of diabetes is similar to cancer with similar costs.

When treating a noncommunicable disease such as diabetes, we have (if you will) to “delay decay.” Smart technologies and gadgets can, with some iteration, common sense and further innovation, help delay that decay. Patients respond well to these technologies because they are patient-facing rather than technologies only available to doctors and nurses.

Smart socks are an example of technologies that can help the diabetic foot. As Mr. Vigano noted in the podcast, smart socks take advantage of non-traditional textiles, smaller and cheaper electronics, and an increased access to data from monitoring the foot.¹ Those three things combined, he said, can change the industry and offer patients with diabetes more options to put the foot in remission.

References

1. NPR Tech Nation. Pain: when you don’t feel it and when you can’t stop. Available at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-19-04-pain-when-you-dont-feel-it-and-when-you-cant-stop/id876042622?i=1000428307425&mt=2 .

2. Armstrong DG, Boulton AJM, Bus SA. Diabetic foot ulcers and their recurrence. N Engl J Med. 2017; 376(24):2367–75.