Photo credit: Bayer
WASHINGTON — Getting a finger prick to draw a droplet of blood more than eight times a day was a major lifestyle change for George Dove, who was 8 when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. But recently, the now 12-year-old’s routine glucose test has become a lot less monotonous.
“It makes it less boring. The games are very fun and keep you busy for quite a while,” said Dove.
The games he’s referring to are part of Bayer’s Didget device, which measures glucose levels then uploads the data to a Nintendo DS or DS Lite gaming system. Juveniles with diabetes are then rewarded points and access to new levels in the game when they test regularly at the right times of day and are within the right sugar levels. There are no rewards for testing more than necessary.
“It came at the right time for us because it was at the point where it became sort of an uphill battle, as a parent to keep badgering your child to do the sugars [blood sugar tests],” said Emma Dove, George’s mom.
The Doves live in Nottinghamshire, U.K., where Didget debuted in September 2009. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the testing device recently and the product launched in the U.S. in late April.
The product is sold in the U.S. at online pharmacies, like CVS.com and Walgreens.com, for around $75. The Doves tested out the product for free some weeks before the product came out in the United Kingdom through Emma’s volunteerism with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Emma Dove said she was open to any products that would encourage and reward children to gain consistent testing habits but couldn’t find anything prior to Didget.
“There are several devices out there for Type 1 patients, glucose monitors and insulin pumps. But it’s fair to say there aren’t a lot of patient interfaces that incorporate child-friendly features,” said Debbie Wang, a senior analyst who covers medical devices for Morningstar, the independent investment research firm. “From my perspective, I think anything you can do to raise compliance among children is a good idea.”
For the medical community, the changes are welcome.
“There have been phenomenal enhancements, people [with Type 1 diabetes] used to pee on a test tape to monitor sugar levels and even 10 years ago, devices were bulky and not user-friendly,” said Dr. George Grunberger, the director of the Grunberger Diabetes Institute in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
The innovations continue on, “now Novo Nordisk has pens pre-filled with insulin that look like a box of crayons and different skins you can put on insulin pumps. And Didget is cool because as a physician, anything that helps monitor levels is beneficial to you and the patients.”