Effectiveness of a Four-Points Chart Used with Monofilament in the Detection of Numbness in Diabetes Patients, Phrae Hospital

Abstract

Diabetes patients have high incident of wounds because of foot numbness and loss the foot sensation. The monofilament has been routinely used for foot numbness detection. The method has not been so precised becuase occasionally patients could guess the answers while testing. This caused misdiagnose, overuse of the monofilaments, and time consuming. The objective of this thesis was to study the efficacy of a 4-points chart innovation using with the monofilament to detect numbness, compared to the use of monofilament only for feet examination. In this experiment, 490 patients diagnosed with diabetes were recruited in the diabetes clinic, Phrae Hospital. The statistics used for data analysis were descriptive and Poisson. The results showed that there was no difference in the detection of foot sensation between the two groups. However, there was significant difference in time used for the examination between the group using the 4-points chart with the monofilament and the group using only the monofilament (p<0.05).