By Helena Tavares Kennedy
Sponsored by Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center
As noted in the news in recent years, diabetes is at an epidemic proportion in the U.S., and coming up, November is National Diabetes Awareness month. You probably know someone in your family or among your friends or colleagues who has diabetes. Perhaps you have it yourself.
How to handle diabetes can be overwhelming too, especially when first diagnosed with it. But have no fear – Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center can help!
“Here at SNVMC, we have diabetes management services and the team is amazing. The team consists of nurses, diabetes educators and dietitians who are remarkable,” said Susan Bahorich, SNVMC’s Brand Engagement/Communications Advisor.
Sentara’s diabetes services include diabetes self-management education and support sessions that are accredited through the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE). Help is available regardless of what stage you are in with diabetes. They offer both one-on-one and group education for people living with diabetes, pre-diabetes, and gestational diabetes. So even if you don’t have diabetes, but you know it runs in your family, their diabetes services can still help you to prepare or make changes to avoid getting diabetes for as long as possible.
“Our diabetes management services typically start participants with a one-on-one session to learn diabetes basics and healthy eating for diabetes,” said Abigail Chesterson, Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator at SNVMC. “Our team consists of Registered Nurses and Registered Dietitians who are all also Certified Diabetes Educators. We enjoy establishing a relationship with our clients and see that this helps foster lifestyle change. We invite people with diabetes to participate in our group classes to gain all the knowledge and skills they may need to continue managing their diabetes through their life. Our classes are very interactive and participants are consistently excited and motivated to make changes to reach their health goals upon completion.”
One example of a success story SNVMC offered was the story of a 61-year-old male who was newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes during a hospital stay at SNVMC. His initial hemoglobin A1C was 11.9%, compared to the 4-5% range for people without diabetes.
“Our team provided him ‘survival skills’ education during his hospital stay and got a referral from his primary care physician to our out-patient program upon discharge,” said Chesterson. “After attending individual appointments as well as class education, he had made significant steps towards a healthier life. At the time of his last appointment, he lost 58 pounds, is exercising and following his meal plan. His A1C was 5.8% and his medications had all been reduced. With his healthy lifestyle changes, his wife had lost 20 pounds and a friend has recently lost 10 pounds. He is motivating others to be healthy!”
“My biggest advice for people with diabetes is to obtain diabetes education,” said Chesterson. “We teach people that four main keys to diabetes management are 1) medication management with their provider, 2) healthy eating, 3) physical activity, and 4) healthy weight. Three of those things are impacted by an individual’s day-to-day choices. Without knowledge of what to eat, how to be physically active and what diabetes related goals to work towards, successful self-management is difficult. Working with a diabetes educator can help hone these skills and assist with achieving diabetes-related goals.”
SNVMC requires a referral from the practitioner managing an individual’s diabetes in order to participate in their diabetes program and they have several classes coming up in September, October and November. Check out their website at sentara.com for helpful articles and tips on diabetes as well.
Helena Tavares Kennedy (hkennedy@princewilliamliving.com) is a Contributing Writer for Prince William Living.
