Nerve damage to the feet is a common complication of diabetes but is often not detected until it has become advanced, potentially leading to serious complications including lower limb amputation and greatly increased risk of an early death.
Neuropad® helps address this problem with a simple colour change test. Think of it as an early warning device for ‘feet at risk’. The earlier you can detect a problem the better the chance of doing something about it because prevention is always better than treatment.
Here’s how it works
Damage to the nerves in the feet because of diabetes damages the sweat glands. The medical term for this is sudomotor dysfunction. Neuropad® uses this as a surrogate for small nerve fibre damage. More than 40 published clinical studies attest to the validity of the Neuropad® test.
A Neuropad® is stuck to the sole of each foot like a sticking plaster and left in place for 10 minutes. The pad is blue to start with and should turn pink, in the presence of microscopic quantities of moisture from sweating, to indicate a normal result. If the Neuropad® test patch stays blue, or if it turns a patchy blue/pink, then this indicates that the patient may have some level of early nerve damage. Early nerve damage can be stabilized or even reversed whilst sensory neuropathy cannot be reversed. This is a clinically important difference.