Technologies will not make diabetes disappear: how to integrate the concept of diabetes distress into care

Abstract

Diabetes epidemiology has evolved rapidly since the 90 s and so are the technologies for diabetes treatment and care. With each new innovation coming to the market, hopes that technologies will solve the numerous, complex, issues related to diabetes are present. However, if it is now demonstrated that, overall, those technologies - when available - bring major benefits to people living with diabetes, they do not make the disease disappear. In this short review, we discuss the interconnections between technologies and diabetes distress, an often underlooked consequence of the continuous demands of diabetes. We define the concept of diabetes distress, discuss which dimensions can be positively impacted thanks to the use of diabetes technologies and what will likely not be solved by them. With the emergence of closed-loop insulin delivery systems, it is of utmost importance to give sufficient space to the assessment of the emotional dimension of diabetes care in clinical routine.