Type 1 diabetics wanted for programme

Lakes DHB is looking for people with type one diabetes to participate in a patient education programme in intensive insulin therapy and self management.

Lakes DHB Diabetes Clinical Nurse Specialist Lewese Hicks said the skill based course would teach participants to match insulin dose to their chosen food intake on a meal by meal basis, exercise and manage their blood glucose levels.

The programme called DAFNE ( dose adjustment for normal eating), provides 38 hours of structured education to groups of six to eight people delivered by a specially trained diabetes specialist nurse and a dietitian.

Only health care professionals who have successfully completed the educator programme are able to deliver the five day course.

Lewese Hicks said feedback from people who have completed the DAFNE course in other areas was overwhelmingly positive with participants learning to better manage their diabetes and improve their day to day lives

DAFNE is a patient centred programme designed to improve outcomes for people with type one diabetes. It has been developed over more than 25 years of rigorous research, is fully evaluated and has been proven to work. To maintain course standards all DAFNE centres subscribe to a quality assurance programme.

Lakes DHB is working towards being accredited as a DAFNE centre and becoming part of the NZ DAFNE collaborative, which includes Auckland DHB and Waitemata DHB.

Patient information is gathered and will be held locally to allow the centre to keep track of how well their patients are doing after DAFNE.

The programme was originally developed in Germany as "The diabetes treatment and teaching program" and adopted by other European countries. In 1998, a team from the UK went to Germany and observed the five day programme. The UK team formed the DAFNE group and translated the German program to the UK setting.

For more information contact see: www.dafne.org.au To register your interest in doing a DAFNE course this year please contact Lewese Hicks on 07 376 1000 ext: 5926 or mb phone 0274521050