TWEET THIS: FreeStyle Libre 14 day and its apps are enabling caregivers to better monitor their loved ones with diabetes. Find out how. #healthtech
Behind every person with diabetes — and there are 30.3 million of them in the U.S., and another 84.1 million with prediabetes — are countless caregivers who play an important role in keeping their loved ones healthy. Caregivers remind their loved ones to take their insulin, help them with their glucose testing and suggest lifestyle changes to help them better manage their glucose. Caregiving for a person with diabetes is a noble endeavor, but it can be time-consuming and taxing.
Luckily, managing diabetes is easier thanks to breakthroughs in continuous glucose monitor technology. The FreeStyle®Libre flash glucose monitoring system is making glucose testing painless1, through its mobile apps, allowing people with diabetes to easily share their results with their caregivers with compatible apps.
A More Convenient Monitoring System
Fingersticking and poking that comes with the job isn't fun for anyone, caregivers included. Testing glucose is necessary, but inflicting even minor pain upon your child or loved one with diabetes is never easy.
Enter FreeStyle Libre 14 day system.
FreeStyle Libre 14 day system frees users from the pain and tedium of fingersticks.2 The system instead measures and stores glucose readings through a small sensor, about the size of two stacked quarters, that you wear on the back of your upper arm and can scan through your clothing.3 The LibreLinkUp app helps caregivers track and read their loved ones' levels effortlessly and painlessly. Through the LibreLinkUp app, caregivers can get glucose readings sent to their phone from family and friends who use the FreeStyle LibreLink mobile app. The LibreLinkUp app can help notify caregivers to hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia events of their family, friends and/or loved ones with diabetes.
A More Comprehensive Reading
Helping your loved one make the right lifestyle changes to optimize their glucose levels is one of the toughest caregiving challenges. Unfortunately, the right modifications sometimes aren't made until after a blood sugar crash and a subsequent visit to the doctor — or worse, an ambulance ride.
The FreeStyle LibreLink, now approved by the FDA for use in the U.S., lets users swipe their iPhone4 on their FreeStyle Libre 14 day sensor to instantly capture and view their real-time glucose levels, assess their eight-hour glucose history and see how their glucose is trending. The app also includes a series of reports that visualize trends and patterns to help people understand how they're keeping their glucose in check.
Because the app provides real-time glucose information and a recent glucose history, caregivers can help pinpoint how and when certain foods, activities and insulin injections are affecting glucose levels. This powerful knowledge can help caregivers identify troubling trends and can assist in getting their loved one to make the necessary lifestyle changes, pronto.
A More Convenient Road for Caregivers
We live in a mobile society, so it can be challenging to care for a person with diabetes when you're on opposite sides of town — let alone on the other side of the world. That's where the LibreLinkUp app comes in handy. The app lets caregivers and/or parents see glucose data shared by people who use the FreeStyle LibreLink app5 and FreeStyle Libre sensors, whenever they scan their sensor. LibreLinkUp lets as many as to 20 people check the numbers on a single FreeStyle LibreLink account.
The app is currently supported in more than 30 countries, including the U.S.
The FreeStyle LibreLink and LibreLinkUp apps are giving people with diabetes more freedom by making it easier than ever to monitor glucose levels.
1Data on File. Abbott Diabetes Care.
2Fingersticks are required for treatment decisions when you see Check Blood Glucose symbol, when symptoms do not match system readings, when you suspect readings may be inaccurate, or when you experience symptoms that may be due to high or low blood glucose
3The reader can capture data from the sensor when it is within 1 cm to 4 cm of the sensor.
4The FreeStyle LibreLink app and the FreeStyle Libre and FreeStyle Libre 14 Day reader have similar but not identical features. Fingersticks are required for treatment decisions when you see Check Blood Glucose symbol, when symptoms do not match system readings, when you suspect readings may be inaccurate, or when you experience symptoms that may be due to high or low blood glucose. When using FreeStyle LibreLink app, access to a blood glucose monitoring system is required as the app does not provide one.
5The FreeStyle LibreLink app is compatible with iPhone 7 and later running iOS 11 and later. Use of the FreeStyle LibreLink app requires registration with LibreView, a service provided by Abbott and Newyu, Inc.
FOLLOW ABBOTT