Temperature monitoring to assess, predict, and prevent diabetic foot complications

Preventing foot complications in high-risk patients with diabetes is often overlooked. Assessing risk factors and providing standard preventative care is low tech and relatively inexpensive. The objective of this article is to discuss standard screening and prevention practices and using temperature as a self-assessment and monitoring tool. There are a number of studies that demonstrate the impact of screening and prevention; three randomized clinical trials report a three- to 10-fold reduction in foot ulcerations among high-risk patients.