Interventions found useful for older diabetics

A new study has revealed that older adults with type 2 diabetes can receive a great deal of benefit from medication interventions to help reduce problems with their condition.
The research, from a team at the University of Michigan Health System, which was published in the Journal of Gerontology, showed that both middle-aged and older adults who have diabetes were experiencing significant survival rates from interventions, even those in nursing homes or facing a range of other health issues that mean self-management of their diabetes is made even more difficult.
It was also claimed that older adults could benefit from interventions that can delay or prevent complications associated with diabetes, such as heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage and poor vision. In addition, the researchers demonstrated that middle-aged adults had more problems in self-managing their diabetes than older adults. It is thought the effectiveness of these interventions is dependent on the person’s ability to self-manage their diabetes and on being able to survive for a sufficient time to experience benefits from their treatment.
Lead author of the study Christine T. Cigolle, said “We went into this thinking that people in the limited health group would have substantial mortality but with the exception of patients over age 76 with the poorest health status, all showed strong survival rates.”