Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Biomedical Engineer Says Her New Smart Socks Can Save The Lives And Limbs Of Diabetics

Self-lacing, light-ups are fun and all. But what if your footwear could monitor your health, or at least a portion of it?

Diabetic foot ulcers heal quickly with nitric oxide technology

Around the world, 425 million people live with diabetes and upwards of 15 percent develop foot ulcers, which increases their risk of death 2.5 times. A new nitric oxide-releasing technology has the potential to cut down the healing time of diabetic foot ulcers from 120 days to 21 days.

Maggots are making a comeback in modern medicine

The larvae of the greenbottle blowfly (Lucilia sericata) feast on the bacteria and dead tissue in chronic wounds, cleaning out the wound and giving it more of a chance to heal. This is an ancient therapy, used since Biblical times, but fell out of favour with the invention of antibiotics. However, the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, combined with skyrocketing rates of chronic wounds from diabetes, has led to a resurgence of interest in using creepy-crawlies as treatment, usually referred to these days as maggot debridement therapy or larval therapy.

Preventing a million diabetic foot amputations

Every 20 seconds someone, somewhere on the planet, loses a foot due to diabetes. Foot ulcers are the starting point of more than 80% of these amputations, and they could be prevented.

The Diabetic Foot Infection: When and What Types of Antibiotics are Warranted?

Diabetic foot infections (DFI) are a common problem for patients with poor blood glucose control. The lifetime risk of developing a diabetic foot infection is as high as 25% with estimates of yearly risk reaching 4%.

The Real Costs of Diabetic Foot Complications

This infographic sheds light on the costs associated with diabetes and diabetic foot complications.

Diabetes Is the Price Vietnam Pays for Progress

In a country where limbs were once shattered by ordnance and land mines, hospitals in Vietnam are treating an alarming caseload of “diabetes foot,” an infection that often begins as a minor scrape but then develops into a gangrenous wound because the disease desensitizes patients and compromises the healing process. In the most severe cases, legs are amputated. If the limb can be spared, doctors perform a debridement, a grisly operation that seems more fitting for the trenches of Verdun than for a dynamic, modern metropolis like Ho Chi Minh City.

Diabetic foot disease: From the evaluation of the “foot at risk” to the novel diabetic ulcer treatment modalities

Concluding, diabetic foot ulceration is generally preventable. The first step in ulcer prevention is the careful screening for foot problems and detection of patients at high risk. More research is still required to improve the diagnosis of conditions leading to foot ulceration.

Got Diabetes? Why You Must Protect Your Feet

Despite the alarming rate of those who wind up in the hospital for this serious diabetes complication, only a small percentage of patients take preventive steps to avoid losing lower limbs.

Prevention of Diabetic Foot Ulcer

Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is not only a patient problem but also a major health care concern throughout the world. Diabetic foot ulcer is one of the common and serious complications in diabetic patients. Treatment of infection in diabetic ulcer is difficult and expensive.

Putting Feet First

People with diabetes are 30 times more likely to have a lower limb amputation than people without the condition. Every week there are more than 100 diabetes-related amputations in England alone – yet four out of five times the loss of a person’s foot, or even leg, could be avoided.

This Is Wound Care, the Coolest Specialty in Health Care

Once a patient has developed diabetes their wounds need professional help to heal. Many patients ignore these wounds out of fear, which can lead to infection and even lower limb amputation.

True impact of diabetic foot ulcers

The prognosis for people with an infected diabetic foot ulcer is worse than was previously thought, according to new research. More than half the patients in the research study did not see their ulcer heal over a year -- and one in seven had to have part or all of their foot amputated.

What is Wound Care?

You'd probably like to do something soon because waiting can mean infection ... or worse! You might not be aware but Wound Care Advantage has been quietly healing stubborn wounds for well over a decade. By using the most advanced technology like hyperbaric therapy, debridements, and venous ablation, we heel non-healing wounds in less than six weeks.

A Simple Step to Cut Diabetes Costs

Getting Patients to Check Feet Daily Can Reduce Complications

DF Blog

On diabetic foot, wound healing, amputation prevention, and the merger of consumer tech with medical devices.

KCI

Diabetes is the leading cause of non-traumatic lower extremity amputations in the United States. 15% of all diabetic foot wounds will result in amputation.2 On average, an extremity is amputated every 30 seconds due to complications of diabetes and the majority of these amputations occur following the development of a diabetic foot ulcer.4

California Podiatric Medical Association

A diabetic foot ulcer is an open sore or wound that most commonly occurs on the bottom of the foot in approximately 15 percent of patients with diabetes. Of those who develop a foot ulcer, six percent will be hospitalized due to infection or other ulcer-related complication.