When your patients with diabetes or prediabetes lose their sight, it’s devastating.
Diabetes is the leading cause of vision loss in people 18–64 years old.[i] And there are often no obvious signs or symptoms. Around 50% of people with diabetes do not receive an annual eye exam.[ii] But the evidence shows that early detection, timely treatment, and appropriate follow-up can reduce a person's risk for severe vision loss from diabetic eye disease by 95%.[iii]
Explore here for continuing education and practice and community resources.
Help facilitate the exchange of information between health care professionals and eye care professionals in order to improve outcomes and preserve vision in people with diabetes.
Have meaningful conversations with your patients about the progression of eye disease as well as what can be done to prevent, delay and/or manage the disease. Download this guide for patient-centered scripting and easy-to-understand visuals. Quick tips on how to use the guide in your clinic.
Use this form letter template when communicating standard eye exam health information to primary care or endocrinology professionals in easy-to-follow language to support a team-based collaborative care.
Use this form letter template when referring your patients living with diabetes to eye care professionals. It communicates standard health information in easy-to-follow language to support a team-based collaborative care between primary care or endocrinology professionals and eye care professionals.
This Compendium provides information primary care providers need to understand the eye complications of diabetes and counsel patients about them.
The Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes includes all of ADA's current clinical practice recommendations and is intended to provide clinicians, patients, researchers, payers, and others with the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals, and tools to evaluate the quality of care. The recommendations are based on an extensive review of the clinical diabetes literature, supplemented with input from ADA staff and the medical community at large.
[i] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report, available at https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics-report/index.html. Accessed May 24, 2022.
[ii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Keep an Eye on Your Vision Health, available at https://www.cdc.gov/visionhealth/resources/features/keep-eye-on-vision-health.html Accessed May 24, 2022.
[iii] National Eye Institute. People with Diabetes Can Prevent Vision Loss, available at https://www.nei.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2019-06/diabetes-prevent-vision-loss.pdf. Accessed May 24, 2022.
