SMART FOOT INSOLE FOR REDUCING THE RISK OF FOOT ULCERS IN DIABETIC PATIENTS BY MEASURING PLANTAR PRESSURE

Background of the Study: The prevailing cause of Diabetes is a decline in insulin production, the outcome of which is an elevated glucose level in the blood. The superabundance of glucose in the blood can cause severe complications, damaging other body organs, including kidneys, nerves, heart, and upper and lower limbs. However, the common complication in diabetic patients is foot ulcer, which is directly associated with Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), which is the extensive cause of this. DPN is the inability of nerves to sense any external change, due to which the foot plantar pressure is altered and evolves because of the high glucose level. Methodology: This paper provides a solution in the form of a portable and cost-effective device based on force sensors for diabetic patients to monitor the change in foot plantar pressure at home and overcome the risk of foot ulceration. The device is implemented on 30 participants to characterize the plantar pressure values with flat foot and normal foot types for the Control group and diabetic group. Results: An evident difference in the value of Mid-foot pressure is observed for both the groups, Control group (Normal foot = 144+2.63 kPa, Flat foot = 150+2.72 kPa) and Diabetic Group (Normal foot = 213+2 kPa, Flat foot = 216+1 kPa). Deviation in these values discriminates the mid-foot pressure for the two groups, thus providing us a range for the individuals of the control group for the alarming situation. Conclusion: Noticing the plantar pressure through the proposed device helps diabetes patients reduce their risk.

Self Efficacy of Regular Education Teachers in Inclusive Classroom Settings

Teachers‟ self-efficacy in inclusive settings works as a strong agent to promote inclusive education. Purposely it is important to investigate the level of self-efficacy of regular school teachers who are expecting to work in inclusive classroom. Present study was a practical attempt to investigate the level of self-efficacy of regular classroom teachers for teaching in inclusive classrooms. Survey research design has been used in this study to measure self-efficacy of regular school teachers who were teaching at primary, elementary and secondary grade levels in all regular schools were taken as population of the study. For sampling, purposive sampling was done to select twelve districts out of thirty six (36) districts from Punjab Province on the basis of density of their population. As sample total 500 teachers who were teaching at primary, elementary and secondary grade levels were selected through simple random sampling procedure. Data was collected through a self-designed scale named “Teacher self-efficacy in inclusive settings (TSEIS)”. Through this scale regular classroom teachers‟ self- efficacy was measured on five level Likert scale raging; (1) I am very much confident, (2) I am confident, (3) No opinion (4) I am less confident, (5) I am not confident. Indicators for measuring self-efficacy of regular teachers were respectively as follow; (1) teachers‟ efficacy for need assessment for differentiated instructions (2) teachers‟ efficacy for adapting assessment tools (3) teacher‟s efficacy for managing classroom disruptive behaviors of diverse learners in inclusive settings (4) teachers‟ motivation for teaching diverse learners in inclusive settings (5) teacher‟s efficacy for collaborating with parents in inclusive settings (6) teacher‟s efficacy for teaching in collaboration with other professionals through team teaching techniques. Finally, completely filled tools were collected back from 446 teachers. The return response rate was 90% from the respondents. The reliability of the tool was 0.823. Through findings of present study the researcher found negative relationship between gender and self-efficacy components used in study tool. The principal analysis of 06 components yielded the value (0.424) of only adaptation in assessment which was less than 0.5 that showed the reinvestigation of remaining five components. Regression analysis of students‟ need assessment for differentiated instruction as reported by general education teachers found them untrained to assess the needs of diverse students. Through this study the researcher concluded that implementation of full inclusion would not be possible unless regular classroom teachers would ready to work. At the end it is recommended that school administration and the stakeholders may plan better school improvement initiatives while they get the reflection of each teacher‟s personal professional feedback in accordance to their professional development demands for future.