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Copley Offers June Classes for People with DiabetesContact Peter Wright05/21/2007
For Immediate Release
Copley’s Certified Diabetes Education Team, (Loretta Schneider, RN and Nancy Wagner, RD), is pleased to present classes for anyone with diabetes. Remember, you are a person with diabetes, not a diabetic. Classes help participants gain comprehensive information, whether newly diagnosed or living with diabetes, and provide insight into what happens to the body when you have diabetes. The class provides strategies to learn how to better care for your self. These strategies include diet, exercise, blood sugar monitoring and insulin treatment. “Our goal is to provide participants with the tools and resources in order to live a healthy lifestyle and feel better,” states Wagner.
Diabetes is a serious chronic disease with rates of newly diagnosed climbing at an alarming rate. What you may not know is Lamoille County has the second highest diabetes rate in Vermont. The disease either stops your body from making insulin or prevents it from using insulin properly. Without insulin, your body can’t change sugar (glucose) into energy. The amount of glucose in your blood becomes too high when glucose is not changed into energy. “The longer diabetes goes on without treatment, the greater its potential for harm,” continued Wagner.
Though early diabetes may have no apparent symptoms, possible warning signs include excessive thirst and urination, daytime fatigue and blurred vision. If not controlled, diabetes can lead to serious complications such as heart disease, stroke, nerve damage, kidney failure and blindness.
The class covers topics like:
Knowing your numbers: an overview of diabetes
Knowing you nutrition: portions and food labels
Knowing your healthy steps (free pedometers)
Knowing your resistance (talk about insulin resistance – what it is and how to improve it)
Knowing your options: preventing complications
Classes are scheduled from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and are free to anyone with diabetes. Dates of classes are as follows: June 5, 7, 12, 14, 19 and 21st at the hospital’s Diabetes Education Office. Wagner noted that although classes are free, registration is required as space is limited.
Copley’s Diabetes Education team is health professionals who specialize in the treatment of diabetes. They help patients learn to live a healthier, more productive life with the disease. Their work is a team approach that includes the patient’s provider.
For more information on diabetes or to register for offering call 802-888-8226.
Contact Information
Peter Wright
Senior Director Planning, Development and Medical Group Operations
Copley Health Systems
802-888-8301
pwright@chsi.org
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