Improving diabetes management

What you will study

This is an introductory course in which you will develop an understanding of the following:

• What is diabetes? introduces different types of diabetes and the parts of the body and physical processes involved in the development of this condition.
• Awareness of care looks at the team and service sector involved in diabetes care, standards for good care and the characteristics of an empowering relationship between practitioners and people with diabetes.
• Medical management explores the diagnosis of, and treatments for diabetes including insulin and non-insulin therapies.
• Screening for complications of diabetes discusses long-term complications, their effect on the person with diabetes, and the screening which is carried out to detect them.
• Monitoring risk factors for diabetes complications further discusses the risks of long term complications and examines the diabetes annual review in detail. It examines the factors that increase these risks and how they are monitored.
• Hyperglycaemia and Hypoglycaemia considers some general principles for treating high and low blood glucose levels. Situations that cause variations in blood glucose control and how people with diabetes can manage these is considered as well.
• Psychosocial aspects of diabetes considers the psychological and the social consequences of living with diabetes.

This is a multimedia online course and will require around 55 hours of your time in total. You will learn through a carefully structured programme of study that incorporates interactive activities and video material. Although this course does not carry university credit, regular computer marked tests and self reviews can be used to test your understanding. The course is entirely self directed and does not include tutorial support.

The strong link between course learning and your work practice creates relevant, enduring and transferable outcomes – and the learning is far richer than more expensive one-to-three day workshops. 

The course features the distinctive strengths of The Open University (OU) from its years of expertise in supporting learning:

• The convenience of accessing its clearly presented and sequenced materials and activities whenever suits you and wherever you have access to the protected course website – if you prefer, you can print key materials to work on them offline.  Note taking templates are available and saved for you in the virtual learning environment.
• Statement of participation from the OU which you can use this to demonstrate your continuing professional development (CPD) activity to your employer and/or professional body. (N.B. The course does not carry academic credit points.)

Some of the pages within the module contain links to external sites. Accessing these sites is part of the allocated study time for the module. You may also wish to undertake additional background study or reading if some of the concepts introduced are completely unfamiliar to you.

Vocational relevance

This course would be relevant to health and social care practitioners working with people who have diabetes.

Professional recognition

Completion of the course enables us to recognise your work through an OU statement of participation that you can use to document your commitment to continuing professional development in your personal portfolio, or to provide evidence to employers or professional body.

Outside the UK

This course has been written primarily for a UK context with references to the UK context.

Entry

There are no entry requirements. For each course you can register and begin at any time during the life of the course. You can study at your own pace. The course will be open to you for a time period of between 6 and 18 months depending on your course registration date and you will be advised of the specific time limitations upon enrolment.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact us.

What's included

All learning materials are delivered entirely online. All study is self-directed. The course does not include tuition.

Computing requirements

You will need a computer with internet access to study this module as the study materials and activities are accessible via a web browser. You may also be required to perform other tasks, such as word processing, using spreadsheets, taking part in online forums, and submitting files to the university for assessment. The additional software for these tasks will either be provided or is freely available.

We recommend either of the following:

• Windows desktop or laptop computer running Windows 7 or later operating system
• Macintosh desktop or laptop computer running OS X 10.7 or later operating system.

A netbook, tablet, smartphone or Linux computer that supports one of the browsers listed below may be suitable. The screen size should be at least 1024 (H) x 768 (W) pixels. If you intend to use one of these devices please ensure you have access to a suitable desktop or laptop computer in case you are unable to carry out all the module activities on your mobile device.

We recommend a minimum 1 Mbps internet connection and any of the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer 9 and above
• Apple Safari 7 and above
• Google Chrome 31 and above
• Mozilla Firefox 31 and above.

Note: using the latest version for your browser will maximise security when accessing the internet. Using company or library computers may prevent you accessing some internet materials or installing additional software.

See our Skills for OU study website for further information about computing skills for study and educational deals for buying Microsoft Office software.