Contents:
- Medical Video: Thailand's Health Crisis - Part 1 - Diabetes
- Type 1 diabetes in children in southeast Asia
- What are the risk factors for type 1 diabetes in children?
- The challenge of treating type 1 diabetes in children in Southeast Asia
- 1. Medical expenses have not been reached
- 2. Availability and storage of insulin
- 3. Patient adherence to treatment
Medical Video: Thailand's Health Crisis - Part 1 - Diabetes
If all this time diabetes is more identical to an elderly person, it turns out that children can also experience it. It's just that, compared to type 2 diabetes, the type of diabetes that is more common in children is type 1 diabetes. Given that diabetes is a lifelong disease, treatment for type 1 diabetes in children cannot be careless.
Unfortunately, unlike in developed countries, treatment for type 1 diabetes in children in Southeast Asia is often faced with a variety of complex challenges. What are the challenges? To be more understanding, see the following explanation, let's!
Type 1 diabetes in children in southeast Asia
Type 1 diabetes in children occurs when the pancreas is disrupted so that it cannot produce enough insulin for the body. The production of insulin which is disrupted in the child's body for a long time makes the blood sugar level too high. This condition is believed to occur due to interference from genetic or family ancestry.
Type 1 diabetes can affect anyone indiscriminately. Even so, in many cases, this disease has emerged from an early age. Precisely around the age of 5-15 years.
Quoting from Diabetes Atlas, in Southeast Asia alone the number of people with type 1 diabetes has reached 81,400 people and will continue to grow every year. Type 1 diabetes in children cannot be underestimated because this disease will continue to exist for the rest of the child's life, it cannot even be cured.
That is why it is important to detect and treat children with type 1 diabetes from childhood. Because if not, this disease can lead to more serious medical complications, damage organs, to life threatening.
What are the risk factors for type 1 diabetes in children?
Most type 1 diabetes that attacks children is passed down by the family. Even though that's not all. Environmental factors, diet, and daily activities contribute as one of the triggers, although the portion is not as big as genetic factors.
A dirty environment can trigger viral infections in the body of a child can trigger type 1 diabetes. Because, after the infection has subsided, the body can trigger an autoimmune process. That is, the immune system that should protect the body from exposure to foreign substances, actually attacks the body's healthy cells. In this case, the pancreas of a child with type 1 diabetes is an easy target.
That is why later the ability of a child's pancreas to produce insulin is no longer normal. Rubella virus and coxsackie virus are a number of groups that can trigger type 1 diabetes.
On the other hand, a daily diet that is balanced with appropriate activity is also often associated with the possibility of type 1 diabetes in children.
The challenge of treating type 1 diabetes in children in Southeast Asia
As with type 1 diabetes experienced by adults, children who have type 1 diabetes also need special care. However, it is not an easy thing to treat type 1 diabetes in children, especially in Southeast Asia.
Here are some challenges that are often present throughout the process of caring for children with type 1 diabetes:
1. Medical expenses have not been reached
Monitoring blood sugar levels is a mandatory thing that must be done by every person with diabetes. No exception for children who must at least check blood sugar 2-4 times a day, can also be more.
However, it must be admitted that not all type 1 diabetics are able to comply with all treatment recommendations. Including drug consumption and checking blood sugar levels.
This can be caused by the limitations of diabetes patients themselves. If in developed countries patients get access to health more easily, it is inversely proportional to countries in Southeast Asia. The difficulty of using health insurance sometimes makes patients have to spend more in getting injections of insulin, glucometer strips to check glucose, to basic health services in hospitals.
2. Availability and storage of insulin
In addition to checking blood sugar levels, another thing that must be fulfilled by children with type 1 diabetes is injecting insulin to help control blood sugar levels.
It seems easy, huh? Even though there are still many type 1 diabetes patients who live in rural areas with minimal infrastructure and health care facilities. This makes the treatment of diabetes hampered because getting insulin in a remote area is not as easy as in a big city.
It doesn't stop there, insulin must always be stored in cold temperatures. This storage process certainly requires a refrigerator with a stable electricity supply without obstacles. Unfortunately, these prerequisites are also difficult to meet by children with type 1 diabetes who live in rural areas or areas with minimal access to electricity.
3. Patient adherence to treatment
It is difficult to maintain the discipline of children in undergoing treatment. Children may be fussy or uncomfortable if they have to be injected continuously.
On the other hand, family awareness and the closest people to support the treatment of type 1 diabetes in children are also fairly low. The lack of knowledge of patients and surrounding people regarding diabetes care is also another reason why the treatment of type 1 diabetes does not work optimally in Southeast Asia.
In fact, not a few children with type 1 diabetes are full of activities that tend to override meals, rarely exercise regularly, do not routinely check blood sugar, and often absent insulin injections. As a result, blood glucose becomes unstable and difficult to control.
Seeing how difficult treatment is to combat type 1 diabetes in children does not mean that this burden is only faced by patients. Because, basically the responsibility for treating type 1 diabetes must be carried out by all parties. Be it the government, medical personnel, community, family, school, until the patient itself.
In order to commemorate World Diabetes Day, Hello Sehat collaborated with Action for Diabetics (A4D) to increase Indonesian people's awareness of diabetes in children through complete information about type 1 diabetes, especially how to recognize symptoms, how to treat them, and care tips for children with diabetes .
A4D is a charitable organization that helps finance the treatment of children with type 1 diabetes in Southeast Asia. All A4D efforts for children will continue to be carried out with your support. Let's donate now by clicking on this link!
