Safer Aging With Diabetes Monitoring

The overarching goal of this pragmatic randomized clinical trial is to support safer diabetes care in older adults (age ≥ 75) with type 2 diabetes (T2D) who require insulin therapy. Many of these older adults are at high risk for severe hypoglycemia due to symptom unawareness and/or nocturnal hypoglycemia. Effective and safe management in this population requires close glucose monitoring coupled with proactive medication and diet adjustment to avoid severe iatrogenic consequences. This study proposes to achieve this goal through a patient-oriented intervention program that incorporates the use of alarm-enabled continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). There are currently no major randomized trials directly assessing the use of CGM to reduce severe hypoglycemia among the oldest adults with T2D. The study team will conduct a 2-arm trial: 1) Group-based, three-session education intervention (CGM provided to participants) vs. 2) usual care (no CGM provided to participants). The primary outcome is an aggregate measure of clinically significant hypoglycemia. The study will also examine differences in patient-reported diabetes distress, fear of hypoglycemia, and self-efficacy using validated survey measures.