Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The purpose of this scientific essay is to evaluate if a continuous glucose monitoring system is something that can benefit Swedish animal health care. The study investigates if it is medically possible to use continuous glucose monitoring systems on dogs with an apparatus attached to their bodies. Furthermore, I try to establish whether this is possible in practice and how it could be done. The keywords used were diabetes mellitus, insulin, continuous glucose monitoring, blood glucose monitoring, dog, pet owner and animal nursing care. Furthermore, I wanted to find out if this system could be an alternative to currently established methods to measure the patient’s blood glucose level. If this was a possibility it would lead to better control of the blood glucose levels because this system measures the glucose concentrations every 5 minutes and would lead to a better insulin adjustment for the patient. The result showed both advantages and disadvantages with the system. During anaesthesia the use of a real-time continuous glucose monitoring system could lead to less postoperative complications such as brain damage and seizures. The system has to be calibrated each day with a handheld blood glucose meter. This means that the pet owner has to stick the animal each day during the monitoring time to measure the blood glucose level to compare with the glucose concentration. But if the pet owner is dedicated to the pet, the use of the continuous glucose monitoring leads to a better control of the dog’s diabetes mellitus. This could lead to a longer life, less suffering and fewer complications for the patient. Furthermore, the study concludes that this system should be improved so it can be attached to the animal for more than 72 hours (the maximum time used at the time of the study). The study also concludes that the system should be improved so it does not have to be calibrated. Continuous glucose monitoring could modernize the Swedish animal health care for dogs diagnosed with diabetes mellitus in both treatment and nursing routines. It could facilitate the guidance an animal nurse gives those patients due to how their blood glucose has fluctuated during several days. The veterinarian decides the dosage of insulin to give the patient and the animal nurse has an important role as they can give advice to the pet-owner regarding food and exercise after analysing the glucose levels so the animal can receive an optimal care.