I’m currently in Halifax for the 2018 Diabetes Canada/CSEM Professional Conference! I will be updating this post with interesting information that I learn. If your in Halifax as well please give me a shout via email at cdestudycourse@gmail.com if your going for lobsters or  some beers, want to chat about the exam or my website! Thanks

Esmond

October 10th- Pre-conference A: Lets Get Started CDE Preparation Program

Karen Gorecki and Bonita Nowe-Matheson are such great speakers. If you intend to write the exam, even if have have written before, I would highly recommend this pre-conference event. This year they focused on: Education Theory, Nutrition and Insulin

Education

Empowerment is a concept that is client centered, collaborative and facilitates self directed behavior change. Please see Funnel and Anderson for more details

Note that Adult Learners are self-directed, autonomous, bring their own experiences and learning needs to be meaningful and relevant.

Learning modes include 1) Visual 2) Auditory 3) Kinesthetic 4) Tactile. Look to Fleming and Mills for more information.

Styles of Learning include Accomodators, Divergers, Convergers and Assimilators. Google Kolb for more information.

Domains of Learning include 1) Cognitive (able to state sx/tx of hypoglycemia 2) Affective (able to acknowledge fears of starting insulin and 3) Psychomotor (being able to inject insulin correctly)

Motivational interviewing is a client centered approach that addresses ambivalence to change. The four pillars of motivational interviewing are partnership, acceptance, compassion and evocation. The four techniques of motivational interviewing are expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance and increasing self efficacy.

Standards of Education are also important for the test. Knowing the concepts of Structure, Process and Outcome will be helpful on the test.

Nutrition

Carbohydrate counting and sick day management are usually tested on the exam

Know BMI

Know glycemic index. You can visualize them as gushers (high GI foods that turn into sugar quickly and gush sugar into your blood) or tricklers (low GI foods that turn into sugar slowly and trickle sugar into your blood).

Remember that when counting carbohydrate for insulin dosing you subtract fibre from the total carbohydrate. Fibre does not increase blood sugars but is included in the total carbohydrate count on food labels.

Insulin

Principles of insulin adjustment. 1) Treat lows first 2) Look at fasting sugars 3) Look at post prandial sugars 4) Only adjust one insulin at a time

Note that insulin adjustments for exercise have changed to what is recommended on pg S-57 of the guidelines.

The national Diabetes conference in Halifax was awesome and I would encourage anyone interested in diabetes to go at least once. The location changes every year. Next year in 2019 it will be in Winnipeg, Manitoba and in 2020 it will be in Calgary, Alberta.