Editor’s Column
Introduction
Thank you to everyone who completed the recent ADE readership questions as part of the ADEA membership survey. We received responses from 447 members, providing valuable information and feedback to our ADE Editorial Advisory Group (EAG) on what you like (and don’t like) and what you would like to see more of. We will be taking this into account in our planning of future editions of the ADE, to ensure we are covering the topics that many of you have told us you would like to hear more about.
In making sure we are covering the broad range of topics you are interested in we’ve made the decision to move away from themed editions of the ADE in 2020. This will allow us to include a wider range of articles in each edition and provides the opportunity to cover more of the topics you have requested.
Our March edition includes articles on a number of areas of diabetes education and management that were popular in the survey.
- Health coaching. Simon Matthews, Registered Psychologist, Certified Health Coach and CEO of Wellcoaches® Australia (who provide evidence-based health coach training for health and wellness professionals in Australia) explains what health coaching is, how it can benefit both the person with diabetes and the health professional and where you can find out more about gaining skills in health coaching.
- Low carb diets and diabetes. This was a popular request and one of my areas of interest, so your editor has provided an article giving an overview of low carb diets, the research on their use in both type 1 (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D), the benefits and potential risks of low carb eating plans and considerations for diabetes educators.
- Diabetes psychology. This is a broad area and we plan to bring you a range of articles under this topic over the coming year. Our first article, by clinical psychologist, Sarah Lam, discusses the important role a psychologist can play within a diabetes service, and makes the case that a psychologist should be considered as an integral member of a multidisciplinary diabetes team.
- Case studies. You also asked for more case studies and in this edition Cristal Newman, Dietitian CDE, presents the case of a woman with T2D, highlighting the importance of considering individual health goals during medication intensification. If you have an interesting case study, please consider submitting this for publication or get in touch to discuss your idea further. You can find details about the submission process
- Nutrition and weight management. Advanced APD, Fiona Willer, explains the Health at Every Size (HAES) approach – what it is, how it might benefit a person with diabetes and how to determine who might be suitable for this kind of approach.
We also have an article from JDFR discussing screening to prevent T1D, including details of Type1Screen – an islet autoantibody screening program currently underway in Australia and New Zealand, and an update from the NDSS on the recent changes to CGM funding for people with type 1 diabetes.
Conclusion
Finally, a reminder that you can read the ADE via https://ade.adea.com.au on any digital device and can also print, share and comment on articles as well as being able to browse or search for past articles. If you prefer to read offline, you can print any articles you would like to read, either in hard copy or as a PDF which you can then save and read later. You can find instructions on how to do this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9-L_7QvqE
Acknowledgements
I once again would like to thank our hard-working EAG, and our authors, for helping to bring this edition together. We hope you enjoy reading it and welcome your feedback.