Foot assessment in people with Diabetes
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Foot assessment in people with diabetes: A quantitative diagnostic approach.
IRAS ID
200937
Contact name
Roozbeh Naemi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Staffordshire University
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Diabetic foot is one of the most common and costly complications of diabetes. In the UK alone up to 135 people per week (Source: Diabetes UK) will have a limb amputated because of diabetes. It is estimated that by 2025 more than 0.5 Billion people worldwide will be living with Diabetes and 15% of those will at some point develop a diabetic foot ulcer (Boulton, 2000), this is an inherent failure of skin and soft tissues of the foot leading to an unhealed wound and if left untreated potentially to amputation.
The current systems used to evaluate the risk of diabetic foot rely on global parameters such as duration of diabetes and glycated haemoglobin to predict the likelihood and risk of diabetic foot ulceration. As ulceration happens as a result of repeat mechanical trauma to the foot that doesn’t heal quickly enough due to other complications of diabetes, it is important to include mechanical measurements in predicting the ulceration incident in diabetic neuropathic patients. Despite this the currently used risk stratification systems do not include biomechanics so by introducing biomechanics it will potentially be possible to predict the ulceration risk by using more localised measurements.
Therefore the purpose of this research is to investigate the applicability of using biomechanical assessment in predicting the ulceration incidence in patients with diabetic neuropathic feet. The proposed study will lead to development of further stratification of high risk patients into sub categories indicating the vulnerability of tissue to mechanical trauma, which deemed to be the main cause of ulceration in people with diabetic neuropathy.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0019
Date of REC Opinion
14 Mar 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion