[Diabetes-Talk] insulin pump

Wed Apr 13 15:05:35 UTC 2022

Thanks Patricia! I am in the paperwork stage of getting tandem pump. I have used Medtronic many years. I have been advised my son will need to load insulin in pump for me.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 12, 2022, at 4:59 PM, Patricia Maddix via Diabetes-Talk <diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Angela,
> your question is good timing. I was just thinking that those of us that use the various different insulin pumps should perhaps do a presentation at one of our groups meetings to update anyone interested in the newer pumps and their barriers of accessibility.  Several of us are on a task force that met just recently with all of the pump manufactures to explain the barriers of accessibility for blind people and make suggestions of how they might make their devices accessible going forward. We seem to have gotten their attention and plan to stay in communication.
> I had used Medtronic palms for many years Requiring additional cited assistance as I lost more eyesight over the many years. In February of this year I decided to switch to the tandem T slim X2 pump because of its wonderful control IQ feature that is able to adjust your basal rate up  or down in response to blood sugar variations and also give an additional bolus if it feels blood sugars will rise above 180 in the next 30 minutes. These automatic adjustments happen without the user being aware unless they choose to frequently view the pumps status information. In this way it takes a lot of the burden off of the patient having to continually watch their blood sugars and make adjustments in their food or dosage.  You still have to be aware of monitoring your blood glucose which is totally accessible from the Dexcom app and the pump has an app also called t:connect which is almost fully accessible that displays the status of the pump such as battery status, insulin on board, current blood glucose, amount of insulin remaining in the cartridge, current basal rate,, And last bolus or correction including amount and time given.
> Completely accessible for someone who is totally blind is the quick bolus feature which uses the external button which is also the wake screen and power button. To do the bolus you press and hold this external button until the pump wakes up and makes a particular sound then you enter in either your grams of carbohydrate or units of insulin that you wish to take by pressing the button to Count out the dose. At this point the device will beep to count back the dose that you’ve entered and if it is correct you then hold down the button until it beeps to start delivery of insulin.  You can actually hear a little mechanical sound as the insulin is being delivered and then it beeps when it is done so that you can feel assured that the dose has been given. The one drawback of this feature is that when the device is set to count out units of insulin the smallest increment of insulin is 0.5 units which may not be small enough for some people.
> The pump itself is a touch screen with no audible feedback so this would be like using an iPhone without voiceover enabled. Without any side at all the only way to use this touchscreen would be with sighted assistance or help with someone using FaceTime orAira. The touchscreen menus have to be used each time the site is changed to recognize the cartridge filled with insulin and run insulin through the tubing to fill it.  My husband assisted me in punching out some holes and an old business card that line up with a very few of the important items on the touchscreen that allows me to perform those functions myself. As there are dozens of different screens it would not be possible to make overlays for each and every screen. At this point the Tandem pump is not totally accessible to someone who is totally blind but can be used by some people with low vision as a lot of the fonts are very large.
> A blind person would be able to manage the pump independently to take their bolus doses and dismiss alerts and alarms for the two or three days between site changes without cited assistance. However, I did recently get an alarm that said there was a possible occlusion and all delivery of insulin was stopped automatically by the pump. To address this problem I did need to have a mediate cited assistance available as we all know we can’t stop delivery for a very long period of time..  besides showing up on the pump screen, these alarms all show up in the t:connect app which voiceover will read aloud so I was able to find out immediately what the error message was. TheSeeing A I App does a pretty good job of reading the messages that appear on the screen of the pump.
> 
> Hope this helps. Others on the list Who use either this pump or Medtronic or Omni pod will no doubt reply explaining how they are able to use these devices but none of them are fully accessible.
> Patricia
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Apr 12, 2022, at 6:36 AM, ang345x--- via Diabetes-Talk <diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Does anyone use a insulin pump and what kind? Are they audible? 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From the desk of
>> 
>> Angela Perone 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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