Type 2 Diabetes In Older Adults

Type 2 Diabetes accounts for 90% to 95% of all diabetes diagnoses and of the estimated 43 million adults who are over the age of 65, one in four has diabetes. It is very common for a nurse in any health care setting to care for an older adult who has diabetes. Hypoglycemia is one of the dangers associated with the diagnoses of diabetes. In the timespan from 2006 to 2009 adults 75 years or older who were diagnosed with diabetes visited the emergency room for hypoglycemia almost three times more than middle aged adults who were also diagnosed with diabetes.

Hypoglycemia is characterized as a medical emergency. It’s defined as blood sugar decreasing to below normal levels. A hypoglycemic episode in an aging adult can lead to a number of other