A review article by

Dr. Somedatta Ghosh (Pal)

This diabetes-related ischemia and neuropathy ultimately result in a severe complication named diabetic foot (DF). All over the world, most diabetes-related hospital admissions happen due to DF. Every year more than one million DF patients suffer a lower limb amputation.

Diabetic neuropathy can make patients lose the feeling in their feet. They become unable to feel a pebble inside the shocks or a blister remains unnoticed. Diabetic ischemia reduces the blood flow in the legs which makes the healing process of a sore/blister/cut difficult.
 
In most cases, patients remain unaware of this diabetes complication and they ignore numbness, sore, deep wounds at the feet. Thus easily the disease moves to life-threatening advanced stages and the treatment is also too costly at these stages.
For diabetic patients, this problem leads to leg amputation mostly because of:
·       Late presentation
·       Delayed diagnosis
·       Failure to recognize and treat ischemia.
 
A well-designed and informative infographic can play a very important role to educate patients regarding their health.