Diabetes has been known about for thousands of years, however, the use of modern medicine for the treatment of diabetes is a 100-year old phenomenon. Lifestyle modification is the key to prevention and management of diabetes. The year 2020 is the 200th birth anniversary of the pioneer of modern nursing, Ms Florence Nightingale, who stressed upon the role of hygiene in health. The term ‘hygiene’ in now not limited to mere physical cleanliness: the role of mental, social, nutritional, and spiritual hygiene has been explored and proven to be efficacious in the management of diabetes.
Uttarakhand is a hilly state in India, with a difficult terrain that challenges provision of accessible and affordable healthcare to people of our state. Our nurses have compassion, commitment, conscience, confidence, and competence in diabetes care and work in a multidisciplinary team to provide comprehensive care to people living with diabetes. We are also involved in conducting randomized controlled trials on the role of functional foods like cinnamon in treatment diabetes (Ms Anindita Mandal, PhD Scholar) and exploring the role of nurse-led follow-up in glycemic control of patients with diabetes (Ms Kalpana Thakur, PhD Scholar). We also use indigenous interventions like yoga, mindfulness meditation and psychotherapies in achieving a state of “euthymic euglycemia”, which we also term as “glycemic happiness.”
Our work is not limited to Uttarakhand state: we have partnered with Endocrine Society of India to conduct a series of international webinars on “Endocrine Nursing”. We are thankful to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for choosing this years’ theme for world diabetes day as “Diabetes: Nurses Makes the Difference”. We can, and we do, make a difference: we look forward to the day when every human being is nursed to maintain lifelong euthymic euglycemia.
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