LIVINGLIVING
EDITOR'S COMMENT
Set reminders
Struggling to remember to take your
meds, or need to remind yourself of a
doctor's appointment? Your phone can
alert you in real-time or remind you in
advance of a meeting. A winner if you
know things can slip your mind.
Record convo's
Need to understand or recall conversations
you've had with your healthcare team?
Simply use your phone to record them.
While most healthcare professionals
won't mind, it's best to check first before
you hit the button.
Share info
Most blood test meters come with apps
for your phone, which make it easy to
track your blood sugars and spot any
trends. You can also share these results
with your diabetes team, which makes
things a whole lot easier at review
meetings.
Talk to others
Whether you have a quick question or
want to get to know people in the same
boat as yourself, logging into forums and
using social media can play a part in
helping you to manage your diabetes on
a day-to-day basis.
Identify yourself
Most phones let you input specifics
about yourself, like your blood group,
NHS number, allergies and any medical
conditions you may have. All very helpful if
you find yourself in a medical emergency.
Article resources
* Survey conducted by British Summer Fruits
www.ofcom/decade-of-digital
www.nytimes.com/smarter-living
www.ontrackdiabetes.com/smartphones
www.keepfiteatfit.com
MEET AND NO VEG
Among the many perils of modern
world is office life. If more proof were
needed that work can be bad for you,
with commuting, sitting down all day,
and dealing with bosses and other coworkers,
it is a necessary evil, but a
study has shown the bad eating habits
are part of the problem too.
Research from Deliveroo for Business
earlier this year revealed that British
employees will sit through a mind
numbing 9,776 meetings in their working
lifetime - with over half of them being
deemed as completely pointless, so
much so that a staggering one in ten of
the employees who took part in the study
admitted to having nodded off during a
meeting at some point in their life. In a bid
There's an app for everything, including
specific apps for diabetes. So where do
you begin? Here we're saying modern life
is good-ish, but also saying watch out,
your mobile phone or online habits might
not be great for your health. Yet many
diabetes apps now run on mobile phones,
therefore make engaging with a mobile
phone vital, even life-critical, so we're
different on that front. Many great bits of
diabetes kit come with an app, helping
you to visualise data collected by a blood
test meter, CGM, and even an insulin
injection pen. I always say, 'whatever
works for you'. If you like it, you'll use it.
And if you use it, you will gain the health
benefits. So search out what you want,
and see what appeals. Poke around a bit
online and see user reviews and talk to
your HCP for advice too.
to get through the tedium, the survey also
revealed we will munch through 10,753
sandwiches, 19,552 chocolate biscuits
and drink 15,642 cups of tea during our
lifetime of meetings, with 85% of those
polled said they are much more likely to
be enthusiastic about a meeting if food
and drink is laid on.
More than a quarter of workers say
they are embarrassed when visitors
come to their office for meetings as their
hospitality is so poor - confessing to
barely being able to scrape together tea
and biscuits, 14% said they only have
chipped, mismatched mugs in their office
and 22% said they are guilty of plonking
stale biscuits on a plate in an attempt to
look presentable.