Thermoregulatory sudomotor dysfunction and diabetic neuropathy develop in parallel in at‐risk feet

Abstract

Early deterioration of small sympathetic fibres could not be quantified accurately by the clinical, somatic and autonomic tests. Assessing skin integrity and sudomotor function in at-risk individuals identifies early peripheral sympathetic neuropathy, even if the patients have no overt clinical symptoms.

Screening of Foot Inflammation in Diabetic Patients by Non-Invasive Imaging Modalities

“…It has been already known that chronic temperature elevation may be observed in the neuropathic diabetic feet, mainly due to increased arteriovenous (A-V) shunt flow (Brem et www.intechopen.com al., 2006;Chan et al, 1991;Flynn & Tooke, 1995;Sun et al, 2005;Sun et al, 2008). Chronic temperature decrease implies association of PAD (Benbow et al, 1994;Brem et al, 2006).…”

“…Thermography can estimate circulation and vascular patency by visualizing temperature distribution (Bharara et al, 2006;Nagase et al, 1996), and thus, it may be a potentially ideal tool for assessing inflammation and vascular stenosis of diabetic foot. We are using infrared (IR) thermography Nishide et al, 2009), which were also used in some of the abovementioned studies of diabetic foot thermometry (Sun et al, 2005;Sun et al, 2008;Sun et al, 2006) and in the more recent report evaluating healing tendency of the diabetic foot ulcer (Bharara et al, 2010). Liquid crystal (LC) thermography was conventionally used in the papers published in 1980's and 90's (Benbow et al, 1994;Chan et al, 1991;Stess et al, 1986).…”

An intelligent telemedicine system for detection of diabetic foot complications

“…The technologies for temperature measurement of the plantar foot fall in three categories: hand-held dermal infrared (IR) thermometers [5,6], IR camera systems [67,68,70,71,73,74], and liquid crystal thermography (LCT) [66,69]. The use of hand-held dermal IR thermometers in the home environment has been validated by randomised controlled trials for the prevention of recurrent diabetic foot ulceration [5,6].…”

“…The technologies for temperature measurement of the foot plantar in diabetic foot management fall in three categories: hand-held dermal infrared (IR) thermometers [5,6,63] (Fig.2.3a), IR camera systems ( Fig.2.3b) [67,68,70,71,73,74], and liquid crystal thermography (LCT, as shown in Fig. 2.3c) [66,69].…”

“…Monitoring the temperature changes in diabetic foot frequently can be significantly useful in diabetic foot management with the intent to determine the risk of DFU [5,6,[63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71].…”