The Diabesity Care Project: Diabetes Integrated Monitoring System for Self-care Empowering

Abstract

According to the latest WHO estimates, today, about 50 million people in Europe suffer from diabetes, a disease which the UN have defined as a serious public health problem for the planet, probably destined to worsen in the future. Diabetes is cause for a multiplicity of health complications. Those are mainly related to retinopathy, coronary artery disease, that is, risk of myocardial infarction, and lower limb diabetic complication, more commonly known as “Diabetic Foot” caused by peripheral neuropathy and vasculopathy. It is therefore of fundamental importance for the diabetic patient to perform an accurate and constant monitoring of all those parameters that are of major clinical interest for the disease (blood glucose, creatinine, PA, FC, ECG, dry skin evaluation, alteration of blood pressure in the lower limbs). This, not only to keep the current disease under control, but above all in the perspective of a prevention process from further complications. The Diabesity Care Project intends to implement an integrated system that uses innovative materials (tissues) and multi-sensory platforms for continuous and minimally invasive monitoring of the health status of the diabetic patient and for the prevention of the conditions that cause the diabetic foot problem. This paper describes the work planned for the project, that is still under development at the present time.