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At the American Diabetes Association annual meeting a couple of years ago, Dr Timothy Bailey was giving a presentation on continuous glucose monitors CGMs to a few hundred physicians, clinicians, and researchers. Beeping is relatively nondirectional, so many diabetes professionals with diabetes in the back of the room began slapping pockets and rustling bags to check their own CGM monitors.
The source of the beeping only became clear later when someone in the middle of a row near the back of the room slipped out of their chair. With the source identified, nearby clinicians could then assist with glucose gel and call paramedics who took over care of the recovering but disoriented person. Alerts and alarms in the form of vibrations or beeps from the receiver warn the wearer when a change in the glucose level requires attention.
Alarms bring attention to more critical situations than alerts. Sometimes, as in the case above, the person wearing the device may not respond to or even hear the beeps, leaving it to those around the person to step in to help. Luckily, the situation surrounding most CGM alarms is less dramatic than the one at the conference.
Unfortunately, excessive device alarms can create alarm fatigue, 1 especially when they are unnecessary, erroneous, or too frequent. This may lead to ignoring critical alarms or turning them off all together. Issues that surround CGM alarms can be complex for users and others. He may ignore them that worries you a bit or go hand fishing for the receiver that is beeping.
