A 75-Year-Old Patient Is Newly Diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes

question 24

Multiple Choice

A 75-year-old patient is newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus and asks why it developed late in life. What is the nurse's best response?

• A) "This disease is inevitable since everyone over 70 years will develop diabetes."
• B) "The pancreas becomes hardened and unable to produce insulin with aging."
• C) "The body loses the ability to digest carbohydrates as a normal part of aging."
• D) "The body gradually reduces the production of insulin as a normal part of aging."

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Definitions:

Actinistia

A subclass of mostly extinct fish, with the modern coelacanths being the only living representatives, characterized by lobed fins.

Coelacanth

A rare order of fish that was thought to be extinct until found alive in 1938, known for its lobed fins which resemble primitive leg structures.

Sacropterygian Fishes

An ancient group of lobe-finned fishes, some of whose descendants evolved into terrestrial vertebrates.

Ancestral

Relating to or inherited from an ancestor or ancestors.