Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder due to heredity and certain environmental conditions.   Over time untreated or poorly managed diabetes causes numerous problems.   Your client is a 60-year-old female whose basic health is stable but her vision is getting progressively worse due to diabetic retinopathy.   She is somewhat self sufficient and would like to continue to live alone.   Your challenge is to design a morning routine and layout for her two-bedroom, two-bath condominium so that she can take of her personal hygiene and have breakfast before noon daily.

Health Education Standard 12. Level IV. Uses a variety of communication skills to interact with clients 2. Uses strategies to respond to client’ s feelings (e. g. , express empathy, relieve anxiety, develop rapport with patient) 3. Uses communication techniques appropriate to specific situations and clients (e. g. , translate medical terms to conversational language; adapt to aging persons with sensory or mental impairments; interact with persons with hearing or vision loss) 4. Uses facility guidelines for giving health care information (e. g. , providing treatment information when a patient is released from a facility) 5. Uses strategies to interact with clients from a variety of backgrounds (e. g. , knows beliefs regarding health care that are unique to different ethnic groups; knows strategies used by various cultures to solve health-related problems; understands how age, culture, and religion relate to client care) 6. Knows what information to provide to clients to enable them to make informed decisions (informed consent)

Science Standard 4. Level IV. Understands the principles of heredity and related concepts 3. Knows that new heritable characteristics can only result from new combinations of existing genes or from mutations of genes in an organism’ s sex cells; other changes in an organism cannot be passed on

Student will be able to:

• address the needs of a low-vision senior citizen client
• understand the related health implications of diabetes

Useful internet links:

https://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Diabetic_retinopathy

https://www. nei. nih. gov/health/diabetic/retinopathy. asp

https://www. americanheart. org/presenter. jhtml?identifier=4546

https://www. diabetes. org/

• handouts and notes on the design process
• rulers
• markers
• large paper

• diabetes mellitus: diabetes caused by a relative or absolute deficiency of insulin
• diabetic retinopathy: damage to the small blood vessels in the retina, which results from chronically high blood glucose levels in people with poorly managed diabetes mellitus

Day 1: 1. Give challenge to the class (see introduction above).   Explain the design process and provide background information on the client’ s disease. 2. Divide the class into five groups. 3. Ask each group to use the information provided to come up with questions to ask the client so that the groups can begin to develop solutions.   (Note: Possibly ask a nurse or a diabetic patient to come to class the next day. )

Day 2: 1. Allow student groups to brainstorm ideas for possible solutions. 2. Ask each group to select at least two ideas that may work and come up with a design solution for the client.

Day 3/4: 1. Have each group finalize its one best solution. 2. Ask each group to present their solution.

Ask the students to write an evaluation of the process used and what they learned from the activity.   The evaluation should be at least three paragraphs and should include an introduction and a summary.   Have one person from each of the five groups share their evaluation with the rest of the class.

Students can develop lesson plans to teach younger students about the design process or simply educate others on diabetes and its health implications, treatment, and management. Students can also work with a teen that has diabetes and design a meal (go shopping and prepare the food) and fitness plan (choose and demonstrate exercises) to help the teen learn to manage the disease.