April 13, 2003
Blood Tests and Insulin Injections
Question from Port Charlotte, Florida, USA:
Can a GlucoWatch be modified by changing the watch band to fit on a four year old? Could it still yield accurate results?
Answer:
The GlucoWatch is not approved for children below the age of 7. It has of course been tried out on younger children using the upper arm or the calf. The straps that come with the instrument are too large, but they could be adapted to these other sites and sometimes a light bandage helps.
The instrument has a comparable accuracy to other home blood glucose monitoring devices. The main trouble is that it may be difficult to equilibrate in this age group and because of skin irritation, which is usually mild, and little children tend to kick the device off especially at night time. It might be a good idea to talk to your diabetes team about some other ways of solving the reasons that made you think about a GlucoWatch.
DOB
