A01: Foundations of the Diabetic Foot

A foot ulcer in diabetes is not bad luck. It is the predictable end of a process that could have been interrupted at several earlier points. Up to a third of people with diabetes develop a foot ulcer in their lifetime, ulcers precede around 80% of lower-limb amputations, and five-year mortality after an ulcer is in the same range as cancer. Yet the at-risk foot can look and feel completely normal.

This module teaches the causal pathway: neuropathy as the permissive lesion, peripheral artery disease as the healing constraint, deformity and abnormal pressure, and the unfelt trauma that breaks the skin, with impaired healing and infection completing the damage. It explains why ulceration is multifactorial, why a pink, painless foot can still be high-risk, how an ulcer becomes an amputation, and why a previous ulcer is the strongest predictor of the next. It closes with the prevention and equity case that underpins limb preservation.

Content is tiered at Foundation, Core and Advanced level, with two algorithms and case vignettes. You receive the Teaching Document, the Evidence Base, the slide deck, a narrated video and an audio overview.