Blood Glucose Awareness Training

Blood Glucose Awareness Training (BGAT) is an approach to overcoming the effects of Hypoglycemic unawareness enabling people with diabetes to better cope with Diabetic hypoglycemia

Researchers at University of Virginia Health Sciences Center have developed a psychoeducational program that helps patients identify their blood glucose symptoms more accurately, better predict when hypoglycemia is more likely to occur, and then treat hypoglycemia earlier than they might if they were relying exclusively on blunted autonomic symptoms alone. The program, called Blood glucose awareness training (BGAT), is designed to improve the accuracy of patients' detection and interpretation of relevant BG symptoms and other cues. Unfortunately, awareness of these treatments among certified diabetes educators is surprisingly low, and awareness of the program is not even required to attain certification. The reasons for this are multi-faceted, but a frequent criticism is the fact that a disproportionate share of the certification training is dedicated to issues related to the more common type 2 diabetes. Also, BGAT training is more complex, and requires considerable effort on the part of educators, and many may not view it as justified given the proportion of patients who have type 1 diabetes.

An online version of BGAT has been developed and was being tested, but is expected to be functional in the not-too-distant future. It is called BGAThome, and may bring this useful training program to more people in the future.

Categroy:Awareness