Diabetes 2

The client problem this in service will address is diabetes. Diabetes is a disease where the body’s ability to produce sufficient insulin is impaired. This results in higher levels of glucose in blood and urine. My rationale for choosing this problem was that my mother has diabetes and I am at risk for multiple reasons beyond genetic factors. The consequences of having Diabetes are the Genetic factors that puts your children at risk of getting diabetes. Having a family member with diabetes does not mean a person is guaranteed to get the disease. A person inherits a risk for the illness if the patient’s direct family member has it. That means a parent, brother, or sister, is diagnosed with the illness. This is true for both Type I and Type II diabetes. Being at risk alone is not enough to cause diabetes. Environmental factors trigger the disease in people who are already at risk. Proof of this can be found in identical twins. They have the same genes yet when one of them develops type I diabetes, the other gets the disease at most half of the time. When a twin has type II diabetes, the others risk is about 3/4 (American Diabetes Association). So, for these reasons, a patient with diabetes is at risk of putting their offspring at risk for the disease. Short-term risks affecting older adults are associated with complications of insulin resistance. But long-term risks like heart disease, and stroke are most commonly known. What is less commonly known is complications in pregnancy, dental disease, and eye problems which can result in blindness (Rogers). Another major consequence is kidney problems. Increased glucose in the urine caused by the body’s low insulin. After longer periods of time, the kidney becomes incapable of filtering out waste materials in the blood. This leads to kidney disease or even kidney failure. A sign that this is occurring in an older patient is increased urination (John Hopkins Medicine). High blood pressure caused by diabetes puts patients at risk for other complications (John Hopkins Medicine). Damage to small and large vessels can cause heart attack and/or stroke. High blood pressure can also cause damage to kidneys, eyes, feet, and nerves as previously discussed. Diabetes 3 Lastly, whether or not an older patient is a person of color puts them at risk for complications related to diabetes. Systemic barriers to people of color when it comes to their access to important resources like healthy food make diabetes more prevalent in these communities. It is important to recognize that race is a social construct, meaning that this has more to do with societal barriers associated with systemic racism than genetics. If the older patient is black, for example, they are almost twice as likely to get diabetes (Caballero), meaning they are twice as likely to suffer the consequences. Diabetes 4 References American Diabetes Association. Genetics of diabetes.