We guide healthcare professionals in a solution-focused approach so clients can embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
We hope you’re finding a little fun and relaxation this summer, and that you’re enjoying a few inspiring and fresh views along the way! If you’ve been following us, you know that we often share a fresh view that has inspired us, in coordination with our fresh point of view of the week…all as we guide healthcare professionals in a solution-focused approach to practice, so clients can embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
Last time we shared some #ADCES21 sessions we are interested in attending and this week we’d like to share a little more about our A Fresh POV for You session!
Wondering what is a solution-focused approach to practice?
As a quick summary of how a solution-focused approach compares to a “traditional” counseling approach, we’re sharing with you a snapshot from our upcoming presentation Saturday August 14, 3:15-3:45 Central at the virtual Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists Annual Conference. The presentation is titled “Adopt a Fresh Point of View: A Solution-Focused Approach to the ADCES7”. (The ADCES7 refers to the 7 identified self-care behaviors related to managing diabetes.)
We invite you to join us at our presentation where we’ll:
Describe elements of a solution-focused approach to client interactions.
Share how to apply a solution-focused approach when using the ADCES7 self-care behaviors in practice. AND
How to guide clients in identifying “exceptions” to strengthen resilience and confidence to manage diabetes
We’ll be there live chatting with you throughout to get all of your questions answered! Please reach out to us on social media during the conference!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown DIabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
We hope your summer has been going well! We’ve been busy with work and spending time with family. Here @AFreshPOVforYo we are getting excited for the upcoming ADCES21 Virtual conference. For those of you that are attending, we have highlighted 13 presentations that are interesting to us and align with our thinking around behavior change, person-centered care, use of language, and of course use of technology. While there are many, many more sessions we plan to join, we are showcasing just a few!
We hope you’ll attend our session on Saturday 8/14/21 at 3:15 pm CT, S30 – Adopt A Fresh Point of View: A Solution-Focused Approach to the ADCES7 Self-Care Behaviors™. We presented two years ago at #AADE19 and shared an overview of what a solution-focused approach is all about. This year we’ll go a little farther and address the ADCES7 self-care behaviors. We’ll be sharing more info about our program in two weeks, so stay tuned for that!
While we wish we were connecting with our colleagues in person this August, we appreciate the great program put together virtually. We’re crossing our fingers that we’ll be grabbing a coffee or a glass of wine at ADCES22 in Baltimore next year!
Enjoy the meeting if you’re attending! We’ll share some of our thoughts about the meeting in a future post. We’ll also be Tweeting during the conference to share some pertinent information!
T02 – Help People With Diabetes Shift Their Mindset and Change Their Approach to Self-Care Behaviors
In this session, presenters will show a framework for how diabetes care and education specialists can empower people with diabetes to take a new relationship approach to change their entire emotional experience with diabetes to improve self-care behaviors.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Describe a framework for empowering people with diabetes to change their emotional experience with diabetes
Describe how different types of relationships with diabetes impacts psychosocial and emotional functioning
Utilize practical tools to help people change their relationship with diabetes
T10 – Achieve Better Outcomes by Using Individually Customized Messages
This session will discuss how to achieve better results by combining smart goals, virtual programs, motivational interviewing, coaching, stages of change and behavioral strategies with customized messages designed individually to improve outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Combine behavior change techniques with customized messaging designed to improve individual outcomes
Embrace fears and help an individual to overcome barriers
Identify a starting point and build an action plan
T17 – Collaborative Psychosocial Care for Youth With Diabetes
Psychosocial care for youth with diabetes presents challenges for the care team. This presentation will cover engagement and treatment strategies that optimize diabetes care in youth and collaborative care provided by diabetes care and education specialists and mental health professionals.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Identify psychosocial care opportunities in youth with diabetes
Select validated surveys and screening formats for identifying psychosocial issues in youth with diabetes
Adopt concrete strategies to help youth with diabetes
T18 – Language in Diabetes Care From a Personal and Professional Perspective
Living with a disease that focuses on numerical values and patterns can be physically and mentally exhausting. Presenters will examine statements that trigger sensitive emotions and how to replace them with optimistic, inspirational coaching.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Collaborate with individuals to understand how they approach management of their diabetes
Articulate optimistic coaching methods to encourage individuals to live in partnership with diabetes
Reframe the standard clinical approach to a perspective that focuses on the individual experience
T27 – Diabetes Stigma: Causes and Consequences for the Concerned Clinician
In this session, participants will learn how diabetes stigma at individual, interpersonal and structural levels intersect and can compound other forms of social marginalization, contributing to health disparities and poorer outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Define diabetes stigma and name at least four dimensions of stigma
Name pathways by which diabetes stigma is associated with medication taking among people with diabetes
Promote diabetes pride in your practice and across the interdisciplinary diabetes care team
F04 – Too Good? The Potential Dangers of Perfectionism in Diabetes
This session will provide ways to recognize signs of unhealthy perfectionism in diabetes management, its medical and emotional risks, and tangible steps for helping individuals become more flexible, mindful and compassionate approach.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Explain how perfectionism exhibits in diabetes management
List possible consequences of perfectionism in people with diabetes
Utilize strategies for preventing perfectionism pitfalls among people with diabetes
F17 – Practical Approaches for Addressing Behavioral Health Needs
Nicole Bereolos, PhD, MPH, MSCP, CDCES, FADCES
Friday, August 13, 2021
12:40 PM – 1:10 PM
Performing an assessment of behavioral health needs in individuals with diabetes can be limited by lack of training, resources and time. This session will provide practical tools, resources and real-world examples to augment learning in this area for diabetes care and education specialists.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Identify the importance of addressing the behavioral health needs of PWD
Demonstrate real-world applications of addressing behavioral health needs
Utilize tools and resources appropriately to help address behavioral health needs in practice
D07 – Diabetes Care and Education Specialists and Behavioral Coaching For Mental Health: Creating Successful Partnerships
Korey Hood, PhD,
Brooke Benton, CDCES, MS, RD, LDN
Sunday, August 15, 2021
10:05 AM – 10:35 AM
Mental health issues can prove challenging to address for diabetes care and education specialists. This session will discuss how a behavioral coach can work alongside them to screen for mental health issues, recognize when individuals are struggling and connect them to available support resources.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Highlight models that promote partnership between the diabetes care and education specialist and the mental health specialist
Discuss the relationship between diabetes and mental health
Incorporate screening tools and identify referring sources to collaborate with for providing mental health care
D19 – Diabetes Distress: An Overview of Prevalence, Assessment and Treatment
Lawrence Fisher, PhD, ABPP
Sunday, August 15, 2021
11:15 AM – 11:45 AM
This presentation will review the definition, clinical presentation, prevalence, assessment and treatment of diabetes distress due to its high prevalence and consistent links with self-management, making it an important target of clinical care.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Perform a clinical assessment for diabetes distress
Utilize recommended tools for clinical assessment of diabetes distress
Discuss the treatment of diabetes distress
D25 – Optimize Support During Crises With Supplemental Peer Support
Anna Norton, MS
Sunday, August 15, 2021
11:50 AM – 12:20 PM
During the COVID-19 pandemic, peer support communities can serve as a supplemental resource for people with diabetes to maintain their mental health well-being. This session will provide strategies for diabetes care and education specialists to connect people with diabetes to these communities.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Recognize the need for psychosocial support for people with diabetes during a crisis
Provide suggestions and strategies for connecting people in their practice to peer support communities
Identify reputable resources for diabetes management outside of the healthcare environment
Here are a few technology sessions you may be interested in as well.
T24 – Facebook Collaborative To Improve Diabetes Management
Sharing diabetes challenges and engaging with peers through Facebook groups helps people with diabetes make connections and learn/reinforce actionable self-care behaviors. This session will discuss how to use social media to teach, reinforce and support people with diabetes.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Discuss how sharing diabetes challenges fosters connections and improves self-care habits
Increase diabetes education support outside of the provider’s office using social media marketing strategies
Create engaging social media content to obtain measurable results
ET07 – Powered by Dexcom: Continuous Glucose Monitoring Empowers Self-Management and Expands the Horizons for Connected Care
Lindsay Vettleson, RDN, CDCES, ACE-CPT, ACE-CHC, One Drop
Friday, August 13, 2021
10:45 AM – 11:30 AM Join the discussion with DCES digital health experts that are leading the development and implementation of digital platforms to support people with type 2 diabetes to engage in personalized, data-driven, self-management and support coaches and HCPs to inform therapeutic decisions.
S04 – Technology Interventions in High-Risk Populations: The Identify, Configure, and Collaborate (ICC) Framework in Action!
This presentation will describe the ADCES technology framework Identify, Configure and Collaborate (ICC) using a program that delivers care with technology-enabled devices in high-risk communities.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this activity, participants should be able to:
Describe the Identify, Configure, and Collaborate (ICC) framework and its application to high risk populations
Discuss the role of the diabetes care and education specialist in evaluating technology interventions within their practice
Discuss a technology assessment tool that can be utilized to assess specific technology needs
We’ll see you in two weeks with a more detailed description of our Saturday educational session!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown DIabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
With the start of the new year, many find themselves reflecting on the past year, re-evaluating life, and pondering what “resolutions” they will set for the new year. New year’s resolutions often focus on “stopping” doing certain thingsand starting to make changes. Many resolutions revolve around trying to be healthier in some way. Yet evidence shows that about 80% of people fail to stick to their New Year’s resolutions longer than six weeks. That means by the time that Valentine’s Day rolls around, many have abandoned their desire to change. Often resolutions are attempts to find ways to solve problems.
What if, instead of making New Year’s Resolutions which require change and “fixing” problems (and change is hard!) – you focus instead on making New Year’s Solutions?
Who doesn’t like a solution after all? One way to identify solutions is to focus on things that have gone well in the past, and pinpoint how you can do more of that (rather than trying to change).
As you reflect on the past year, here are 5 questions to ask yourself and guide your thinking as you identify solutions:
What went well for you in 2019?
What did you feel happy about?
What behaviors helped you feel successful and were doable?
How can you do more that?
Instead of thinking about “problems”, how can you reframe your thinking into positive “opportunities” and solutions? (Reframing a situation, idea, or belief can bring a fresh perspective. You can read more about this in our January 2, 2019 post.)
We’d love to hear what your’re thinking about for your New Year’s Solutions. Connect with us on Twitter or Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
DiabetesSisters 5TH Annual Leadership Institute, Chicago, IL
It’s hard to believe that National Diabetes Awareness Month has come and gone! Lots of impactful events took place as well as lots of learning. We like to highlight people and organizations that are making a difference in the diabetes community, so this month we’re highlighting DiabetesSisters, a national nonprofit that strives to improve the health and quality of life of women with diabetes and to advocate on their behalf. We spoke with a DiabetesSisters PODS leader in a previous post on travel with diabetes you can read here. (disclosure: Deb serves on the board of directors for DiabetesSisters)
Thank you to Anna Norton, Karen Graffeo and Sara Mart for sharing the initiatives they’ve been focusing on to support the community during National Diabetes Awareness Month (#NDAM) and beyond.
Sara Mart, Anna Norton and Karen Graffeo from DiabetesSisters
FROM DIABETES SISTERS…….
National Diabetes Awareness Month Activities
This month alone, our Minority Initiative Program hosted events for women in underserved populations, with presenter Lorena Drago, MS, RDN, CDN, CDE sharing information, dispelling myths, and answering questions about diabetes. Two of these events, held in Miami on November 13th and 14th focused on culturally relevant information for Latina women and were conducted entirely in Spanish. On November 15th, we teamed up with Hip Hop Fit with Gene Hicks in the Chicago area, where Lorena discussed myths and misconceptions about diabetes. Then attendees participated in a fun Hip Hop Fit class. These events were open to community members, thanks to our sponsors.
We also completed our third installment of our Facebook Live Series on November 15th. With partners The National Kidney Foundation and WomenHeart, we focused on the connection between diabetes, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease. It was hosted by Anne Dalin, who lives with diabetes and is a leader of our Bridgewater PODS Meetup group.
PODS Meetups
Our PODS Meetups are a signature program of DiabetesSisters and are peer-led support groups for women living with all types of diabetes and pre-diabetes. Held throughout the country all year long, volunteers lead Meetups in more than 40 locations! During National Diabetes Awareness month, thirty PODS groups met, with several of them focusing on conversations about diabetes and heart health. Earlier this year, many of our leaders also spent time in Chicago for our 5th Annual Leadership Institute, where they enhanced their skills in facilitating conversations and creating an open, welcoming atmosphere that encourages honest discussions. They brainstormed ways to promote, recruit, maintain, and grow PODS Meetups and shared with PODS Leaders from around the nation. DiabetesSisters also supports our volunteers with PODS Site Visits, where members of our staff travel to and attend PODS Meetups. Our staff spent time on the road this year to visit with groups in North Carolina, Minnesota, Texas, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Between the Lines Project
At the beginning of the year, we launched Between the Lines, a digital page on our website sharing real stories of women living real lives with diabetes. Each story focuses on a different life event and discusses the challenges posed to managing blood glucose levels and the effects on quality of life. It is important to share these real stories that show examples of how life events can impact our ability to stay between the lines of our desired blood sugar range, and we are thankful for every woman who has shared her personal story with us. This on-going project welcomes new stories continuously and we invite any woman living with diabetes or pre-diabetes who is interested in sharing her story to email us at info@diabetessisters.org
DiabetesSisters PODS Leaders
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Taking a break to enjoy the final days of Fall and the changing leaves
Happy fall and Halloween eve! And welcome to week 4 of our 7-week series on applying a solution-focused approach to the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors for managing diabetes. This series is focusing on “flipping” the conversation from a “problem focused” (traditional medical) approach to a solution-focused conversation. Have you tried any “flips” in the past 3 weeks? Please let us know if you have, and what your experience was.
Last week we shared about taking a solution-focused approach to Healthy Coping – you can read it here. And the weeks prior we focused on Healthy Eating here and Being Active here. This week, we are talking about monitoring. Monitoring blood glucose. in the spirit of Halloween, can be very helpful to see how a Halloween treat, and other things in life, impact blood glucose.
While many people use meters to stay in touch with their blood glucose, a CGM (short for continuous glucose monitor), may be a helpful choice for some. With a CGM one can see patterns and trends over time, not just one single number at one moment in time. Also, they can receive real time alerts for when blood glucose is going above or below target. Around holidays such as Halloween, a CGM can be a great monitoring tool to see how the choices made impact glucose levels.
Let’s look at some examples…
AADE7 Self-Care Behavior #4: Monitoring
Below you see a CGM tracing over a 24-hour period, beginning at midnight. The goal is more green – more time in range – more time feeling better. Have you heard of the acronym FNIR? It means flat, narrow and in-range. That is the goal of CGM tracings.
Suppose this tracing below is a few hours after “throwing caution to the wind” and sampling a few more fun size Halloween treats than planned. The Halloween treats are just around for a day or two. It’s just one day. It’s important to keep the big picture in mind.
While the focus may be drawn to the time out of range (in red), let’s turn focus to the green (the time in range). How was that accomplished? We learn that the individual made it to the gym for an early morning workout and enjoyed a healthy lower carb breakfast. Monitoring helped them learn.
From our years in practice we’ve learned that people who live with diabetes have different perceptions around monitoring. For some, it can become an obsession – they need to know where their blood glucose is all the time. It can certainly be a mental burden. And others may not want to focus on their blood glucose. Knowing their number may create negative feelings, fear of judgement and guilt. So, they choose to not check their blood glucose to provide a sense of safety and self-preservation.
We know that glucose numbers are simply that……they are numbers, and numbers provide information. The goal of monitoring is to generate data to help people make choices and changes. Numbers are not good or bad and are certainly not a test score. You may have recently seen this image below on Twitter and/or the discussion around it. This is NOT a solution-focused approach!
Photo credit: Renza Scibllia’s Twitter account
When working with clients instead of focusing on what is not working well or what is “wrong”, here are 3 illustrations of how to flip the conversation:
Try this: You’ve been working hard to fit in physical activity. In looking at your CGM tracinings, what small steps can you take in the direction toward the goal of seeing more time in range (green in the tracing)?
Instead of this: What happened when your CGM was red (out of range)?
Try this: I know you’ve had a lot going on. You mentioned that you checked your blood glucose twice this past week. How did you manage to check twice?
Instead of this: You only checked your blood glucose twice this past week?
Try this: I see that your A1C is in your target range. How did you manage to do that?
Instead of this: Your A1C is outstanding, A+!
We challenge you each week to try incorporating some flips into your conversations and let us know what impact they have.
Join us next week as we discuss a solution focused-approach to the self-care behavior around taking medications.
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Disclaimer: A Fresh POV for You is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers. ~ Fred Rogers
Getting some “beach therapy”
Today we greet you from our first @AFreshPOVforYou writing retreat! “Writing Retreat”…those are BIG words that have been more than a year in our minds, and are now a reality as we sit across the table from each other drafting the content for our first book! No small feat, but one we are excited about! We are passionate about taking a solution-focused approach to life with diabetes…so let your mind imagine just what this book may be about. We’ll share some sneak peeks as things move along.
Now back to our to our blog…
Welcome to week 3 of our 7-week series on applying a solution-focused approach to the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors for managing diabetes. This series is focusing on “flipping” the conversation from a “problem focused” (traditional medical) approach to a solution-focused conversation. Have you tried any “flips” in the past 2 weeks? Please let us know if you have, and what your experience was.
Last week we shared about taking a solution-focused approach to Being Active – you can read it here. And the week prior we focused on Healthy Eating here. Today we’re concentrating on Healthy Coping.
It goes without saying that stress is a part of life…family stressors, work stressors, financial stressors, health-related stressors…at times it might seem like stress is all there is. Add to that the relentless demands of diabetes. The combination can bring a variety of coping challenges and ultimately impact self-care. On the flip side, there are many positive ways to deal with stress and cope with life with diabetes in a healthy manner. It’s all about having a tool-box of resources or tactics to pull out or call upon needed. Here are 6 ways that resonate with us to give you ideas:
Move your body. It might be simply taking a walk. Physical activity lowers stress hormones and triggers the brain to release chemicals that make you feel better. (We’re finding that taking short walks to clear our minds is helping us to feel less stress and think more clearly during our writing effort).
Take a break. It might be taking a walk on the beach or simply having a cup of coffee and listening to the waves hit the sand (as we were in the photo above…wishing we were there now!). Or you might enjoy curling up in a comfy chair and reading a book. Or standing and stretching, taking deep breaths inhaling and exhaling slowly.
Use positive affirmations. When life is feeling especially challenging, we’ve found that practicing “daily affirmations” greatly helps us: I can do this. I am strong. Each moment brings choice. I will not hold onto bitterness.I can live an overflowing life. An affirmation is a short, positive statement that you say to yourself to build yourself up. Have you ever tried affirmations? The reality is that we believe what we tell ourselves and what we hear others say about us. Using affirmations can help to “rebuild” negative thinking and strengthen positive thoughts.When working with clients in a solution-focused way, we can help them to create their own affirmations as one Healthy Coping mechanism.
Get enough sleep. In our experience, many people discount the value of sleep. When chronically sleep deprived the stress response can be even greater. (yep, we’re getting our zzz’s this week!)
Spend time with people that make you happy. Stress can cause some to turn inward and isolate themselves. Talking to others about your stressors and seeking their support is one way to de-stress. Maybe it’s getting together with a friend for lunch. Whenever we are together we have lots of fun and laughter. That is one way we cope with stress.
Practice gratitude. You can read more about this in a blog we wrote on gratitude here.
When working with clients instead of focusing on what is not working well or what is “wrong”, here are 3 illustrations of how to flip the conversation:
Try this: How do you manage on the most challenging days with diabetes to keep moving forward?
Instead of this: Managing diabetes requires a lot of time and effort. It’s something you just have to do.
Try this: On the nights you’ve been able to get to bed earlier and get more sleep, how were you able to do that? How did you feel the following morning?
Instead of this: You mentioned you’re only getting 5 hours of sleep each night. You need to get to bed earlier.
Try this: Where is your stress level around ____ on a scale of 1-10? What would it take to reduce it 1 point? What do you need to accomplish that? How can I support you?
Instead of this: You just need to stop thinking about this issue and move forward.
Focus most of the time and energy on thinking about and discussing what is already good, effective, and successful then leverage that to identify solutions.
When you meet again, here is a 3-step follow-up approach to try:
Try to incorporate this approach with clients to reframe conversations and see if you can help them to focus on the exceptions (those times when the “problem” could have occurred but somehow did not) and their desired future state, rather than ruminating on what is not working.
Step 1 – Have you seen any improvements since we last met? (if yes, ask about it. If not, go to step 2)
Step 2 – Have you noticed times when the problem (defined using the clients own words) did not occur or happened less? (here you are identifying exceptions. If yes, ask about it. If no, go to step 3)
Step 3 – Describe for me what would be different if the problem had been solved? (this is the Miracle Question approach we’ve written about many times. Here and here are two of them)
We challenge you each week to try incorporating some flips into your conversations and let us know what impact they have.
Join us next week as we discuss a solution focused-approach to Monitoring
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Disclaimer: A Fresh POV for You is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Remember that any exercise is better than no exercise. – Anonymous
Pisgah National Forest in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It was a beautiful hike to the falls!
Welcome to week 2 of our 7-week series on applying a solution-focused approach to the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors for managing diabetes. Last week we shared about taking a solution-focused approach to Healthy Eating – you can read it here. Today we’re focusing on Being Active. Being active can take many forms, from simply moving more during the day to intentional bouts of exercise. You can also find ways to incorporate fitness through activities that bring you pleasure or joy (such as our beautiful hike to the falls pictured above).
As a refresher, the AADE7 is a framework for organizing diabetes self-management education and support, as well as for identifying key areas for behavior change to manage diabetes. The 7 core behaviors are:
“I hate to exercise” may be a familiar comment heard by many diabetes care and education specialists (DCES). (In fact, it’s the title of a great book too, The I Hate to Exercise Book for People with Diabetes) For those who are challenged to fit physical activity into their day we feel empathy and understanding because some days it’s a challenge for us too! Life happens!
Some people are born athletes. And physical activity may always be a priority them. If you fall into that category, you might find it hard to understand the challenges other people face with being active. If you can relate, try to take a step back, and think of something that is really challenging for you to engage in. Then try to keep that frame of reference when you’re talking about being active with your clients.
Beyond lack of enjoyment in exercise, finding time to fit physical activity into a busy, challenging day, can also be hard. As DCES’s, solutions that we may generate and propose to others, may not always be realistic. Using solution-focused talk, together, we can help clients identify what they like, and what makes sense to them. We can also guide them in identifying things that make them happy, and find existing strengths. From there, we can help them create opportunities to be active.
It’s important to take care to refrain from “all or nothing” thinking, described by Adam Brown in his book Bright Spots and Landmines(we interviewed Adam here). We need to help clients take small steps towards a more active lifestyle and acknowledge their success, even if it doesn’t align with our thinking of what being active means. Let’s flip the focus of the discussion and help people feel successful and recognize their strengths.
Deb and Diana (Deb’s daughter) hiking in the Dolomite Mountain Range in Northern Italy
Instead of focusing on what is not working well or what is “wrong”, here are 3 illustrations of how to flip the conversation:
Try this: I know how hard it is to have a job where you sit at the computer all day. Tell me more about your office and work setting. Let’s think of some ways you can increase your movement and get you up from your chair.
Instead of this: Did you know sitting is the new smoking, sitting all day is going to kill you. You need to move more.
Try this: You mentioned you’ve been using the MapMyWalk app on your phone. How has this helped you be more active? What else can you do to be more active?
Instead of this: You’re using the MapMyWalk app but you still not getting 10,000 steps a day.
Try this: When you’ve been successful adding physical activity into your schedule, what did that look like? How did you do it? How can you do more of that?
Instead of this: You’re falling short of the goal of getting 150 minutes of exercise each week..
Focus most of the time and energy on thinking about and discussing what is already good, effective, and successful.
During a solution-focused conversation, the DCES’s focus is on discussing and exploring what is already working, is effective, and is successful, then leveraging that to identify solutions, rather than focusing on past problems.
When you meet again, here are 3 follow-up questions to try:
How were you able to focus on solutions to try to fit fitness into your schedule?
What kept you on track toward achieving your activity goal?
What was different about the days you were able to be more active?
We’ll challenge you each week to try incorporating some flips into your conversations and let us know what impact they have.
Join us next week as we discuss a solution focused-approach to Healthy Coping!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust
A view of La Sagrada Familia through an arch on the roof of Casa Mila in Barcelona, Spain
#EASD2019 is a wrap! Hi this is Deb this week. I represented @AFreshPOVforYou at the 55th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) conference in Barcelona where I was excited to share the results of our study (more about that below). I learned much at the meeting, connected with friends and colleagues, and met Twitter followers in person for the first time! I also had time to do a little sightseeing and take in the food and culture of Barcelona!
Front entry of the EASD 2019 meeting, Barcelona
Our abstract, Perceptions of life with diabetes revealed through a solution focused brief therapy exercise via Twitter, was presented on the final day of the conference in a very large room. Often many people leave for home the last day of the conference so I feared the room would be empty, but it was not! Given that this was the only session addressing the psychology of diabetes, there was a great crowd. The presentation focused on the use of the Miracle Question, a solution-focused tool, to help people overcome challenges by using “solution talk” rather than “problem talk.” We wrote about it in our blog post about our AADE presentation here and here describing our World Diabetes Day 2018 #DSMA Twitter chat.
I try to start all of my presentations with a slide reminding the audience (or sometimes educating them for the first time) that #LanguageMatters when speaking with or about people with diabetes. You can read our past blog posts related to this here and here.
#LanguageMatters slide
I asked for a show of hands to see how many in the room were familiar with the Miracle Question approach. I only saw one hand raised. Since this was a 15-minute research presentation, it was hard to cover a lot of the background, so the focus was on the study outcomes. It was exciting to see lots of Tweets about the presentation and that the concept of a solution-focused approach was being spread across the Twitterverse. You can read the full abstract here .
We have submitted the complete data to be published (fingers crossed that happens soon!). However, in brief, when we employed the Miracle Question approach during a Twitter chat there were five themes that evolved. That means that these were the most common threads, thoughts, comments that were expressed by those who participated in the chat. The themes were: more of living life; laughter and humor; self-compassion; resilience; and support.
Deb at the podium presentation
There were several questions at the end of the session and many people came up to talk about the approach. In fact, several researchers shared with me about their research and how they could see incorporating a solution-focused approach into their research study. It was very exciting to see the interest in this tool.
Most of the comments and questions were positive. Interestingly, one questioned the value of having people “think less” about their diabetes, and worried that diabetes management would be hurt. I responded by saying that Dana Lewis (creator of Open APS) might disagree. When I heard her speak earlier in the conference she indicated that with her Open APS system, she thinks less about diabetes, including not having to bolus when she eats carbs.The theme of “more of living life” meant different things for different people. The Grumpy Pumper (Chris Aldred) commented, “For me, the issue isn’t how often I think about my diabetes, it’s the type of thoughts. Looping hasn’t made me think less, but my thoughts are more positive because I’m seeing the results I want.” This was a great perspective. The overarching message was that they wanted to focus on the positive aspects of life.
It’s important to acknowledge that people engaged in a diabetes Twitter chat are likely very engaged in their diabetes management. There was a question if the process would still be successful in others. We agree that we have the same questions and hope to conduct additional research in this area in the future.
We also had a Diabetes Online Community (DOC) advocate @Blue_sugar_cube reach out and ask how she and the DOC could get involved with our work. That was exciting! As well as seeing a few new subscribers to our blog!
And lastly, a big thanks to @WeRateTalks on Twitter who gave our talk an 11/10! Wow! We were honored!
We’ll be seeing some of these diabetes friends in Busan, South Korea for the International Diabetes Federation Congress where Deb will be speaking on two panels, one on #LanguageMatters and one on digital health.
Kellie, Karen, Grumpy, Renza, Deb and Donna at the end of our presentation
By sharing a solution-focused approach to diabetes management with a worldwide audience we hoped to inspire people to think differently and consider incorporating a solution- focused approach in their practice.
We began this post with the quote, The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes by Marcel Proust . We’d like to encourage health care professionals to “have new eyes” when they think about diabetes management, and be open to new tools and solutions.
If you’re a researcher and would like us to consult on a future research grant, please reach out – we’d love to chat!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
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All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. – Mitch Albom
Autumn on the Saint Lawrence river in Quebec
Monday September 23rd heralded in the official start to Fall! For many, Fall signals an ending…the end of carefree summer break for kids, and depending on where you live, the end of warm weather, the end of long sunny days, and the end of leisurely weekend afternoons on the lake or by the pool.
But with that “ending” comes striking new “beginnings”. The air takes on a crispness. The trees magnificently change colors and leaves begin to fall. And we enter a season of waiting. All necessary to make way for the new.
With the start of Fall, today we share 3 solution-focused fresh starts for Fall:
1 – Spend time in reflection. Fall is a great opportunity to take a look back at the past months and summarize your accomplishments in all aspects of life. And to remind yourself what’s gone well. This can help bring fresh perspectives, set priorities and inspire you to consider new possibilities. Life in general brings constant challenges, not even to mention life with diabetes. We encourage you to focus on what has worked. How can you make that happen more often?
2 – Practice gratitude. Fall is a time of gratitude with Thanksgiving around the corner. Reflect on what you are grateful for and what brings you joy, especially if life is seeming challenging and burdensome. Feeling thankful for the experiences and emotions they brought you. Read our gratitude blog to get some ideas on some gratitude practices.
3 – Sum up the results and start something new. Building on fresh starts 1 and 2, that “something new” may be self-improvement activities, setting new goals, or devoting more time to the things in life that bring you joy and contentment. Read our past blog on finding joy in life and diabetes education services. Many programs, workshops and events start in September and October, so it’s the perfect time to enroll. Or it maybe time to take up reading a new book to nourish your soul and help you know yourself better. If you live with diabetes and have not read Adam Brown’s book, Bright Spots and Land Mines, we encourage you to put this on your reading list. The bright spots discussed in his book are very similar to “exceptions” in a solution focused approach. You can read our interview with Adam here.
Rather than think of Fall as ending, think of it as a beginning of something fresh and new.
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, we invite you to subscribe to our blog, and we will send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Disclaimer: A Fresh POV for You is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
A view of the gardens at the West Baden Springs Resort in French Lick, Indiana
We posted this blog back in April during our Fresh POV for You retreat. There continues to be much interest in our work! Since we are traveling this week to present some of our research at the European Association for the Study for Diabetes (EASD) conference in Barcelona, Spain, we thought it timely to revisit this post with a few updates!
In the spirit of travel, this week’s blog is a re-post from French Lick Indiana, home of Larry Bird of Celtics fame, and also the French Lick and West Baden Springs resorts. Working together, but on opposite ends of the country, (Tami in Kentucky and Deb in California) means we have to be creative finding opportunities for in-person meetings. Luckily, things came together……. a spouse work meeting in Ohio, and a visit with a son the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University, created the opportunity for our first formal @AFreshPOVforYou board meeting.
Over the past several months we have been exploring ideas around creating innovative diabetes education programs and services that are co-designed by people living with diabetes or prediabetes. Basically that means, we are attempting to actively involve people with or at risk for diabetes in the design process to ensure the end result meets their needs.
If you’ve been reading our blog, then you know that we love “fresh views” and spending time together enjoying beautiful scenery and experiences. We feel energized and are more creative thinkers when we take a break, are relaxed, seeing things from a new perspective, laughing together, and often with a nice glass of wine!
Enjoying a horse and carriage ride through the Indiana countryside
Over the past year we’ve been planning, thinking, strategizing, writing and sharing our ideas with others in the diabetes community to make sure we are on the right track. Incorporating our practice of using solutions focused coaching, we’ve been asking ourselves, “What’s working well for us and what do we want to do more of?” On a personal note, a few of those replies include the following:
Do hard work in the morning when our minds are most creative
Take activity breaks
Embrace humor
Incorporate things that make us happy and that we find joy in
Express gratitude for what we see and experience
Plan for future retreats to keep us on track and advancing our vision
We’ve taken a set of possibilities and turned them into opportunities and are excited to see our vision for the future starting to become a reality! Our March 20, 2019 blog shared learnings from a Twitter chat that we co-hosted with the diabetes online community focused around what would bring joy when engaging in diabetes education services. We had some insightful and amazing feedback. We decided that we really needed to dig deeper, and find more opportunities for people living with or at risk for diabetes to guide us as we design programs and services. So following the Twitter chat we releaseda survey and had a fantastic response. We followed up the survey with some focus groups.
We have learned that many are not happy with the diabetes education services they have received in the past and there’s great opportunity to innovate and evolve. We had similar responses from both the Twitter chat, survey and focus groups. People are interested in community and learning from others living with diabetes; they want individualized education and not a “canned program”; and they want to be an equal team member whose experience and knowledge is valued and appreciated.
For our focus groups, we employed MDR Consulting, a national business research firm to conduct and summarize the data for us so we can learn more and identify how we might design programs and services that will provide relatable, individualized, solution-focused education (and actually bring people joy)! Our goal is that the voice of the person living with diabetes will be clear and lead the way.
As a thank you for our focus group participants, we’ve been engaging in complimentary solution-focused coaching sessions with them. These interactions have truly brought to light the value and benefits of a solution-focused coaching approach (rather than focusing on trying to “fix problems”).
We are excited for the future and our next steps! We’ve been writing and have submitted papers to a couple of journals that we are hopeful will be published soon. We’re excited to be presenting some of our research Friday at the EASD conference. And, we’re in the planning stages to conduct a research study incorporating solution-focused coaching. Exciting times!
Thanks for being on this journey with us. We look forward to sharing our goals and dreams with you and are eager for your feedback.
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, we invite you to subscribe to our blog, and we will send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou.
