Tool for Your Practice: Simple Demonstration

Tina Trout can talk to patients about the way uncontrolled diabetes can affect their bodies, from heart disease to blindness and kidney problems, but sometimes it’s the visual demonstration that works best. She shows them two jars, each filled with a red liquid. One represents the blood of healthy people; the other, the blood of someone who doesn’t control their diabetes. She drops a few plastic balls in each jar and turns them upside down. With that, the effect diabetes has on the body becomes much clearer. While the balls move easily in the first liquid — it’s actually water and food dye — it takes much longer for them to navigate the viscous fluid in the second jar, made from corn syrup and dye. The blood of someone with uncontrolled diabetes can get equally sticky, increasing the risk of clots and restricted blood flow, which can lead to stroke or heart attack, among other problems. “I’ve had patients tell me they had nightmares after they saw that,” said Trout, a diabetes educator with the wound care and diabetes management outpatient center at Beebe Medical Center in Lewes. “You can see why you have heart disease if you don’t take care of your diabetes.”