Raphael Fraser
University at Buffalo, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Close to 30% of U.S. adults aged 65 and older live with type 2 diabetes, and diabetes care in this group accounts for most of the roughly $413 billion spent on the disease each year.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
type 2 diabetes
older adults
geriatrics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Test whether combining continuous glucose monitoring, values clarification and weekly remote coaching improves patient activation, shared decision-making and treatment satisfaction, in a randomized trial of 300 adults aged 65+ with HbA1c of 9% or higher.
- Determine whether the intervention improves quality of life and physical, mental and social functioning relative to standard diabetes care in the same randomized older-adult cohort.
- Assess whether the intervention reduces health care utilization and geriatric syndromes — frailty, functional decline, cognitive decline and falls — over the course of the trial.
- Evaluate whether giving older patients real-time glucose data plus communication tools yields treatment regimens better aligned with their clinical status, life expectancy and personal values.
More about the research
Older patients often carry several conditions at once and face frailty, falls, memory problems, loss of function and frequent hospital stays. These problems can be made worse by the treatment itself when blood-sugar targets are set too aggressively, producing dangerously low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) or drops in blood pressure on standing. Professional guidelines call for treatment tailored to each person's health status, life expectancy and goals, yet many older adults remain on regimens that do not match any of these, partly because of low patient activation, limited health literacy and obstacles to shared decision-making with clinicians.
Why it matters
Older adults with type 2 diabetes are frequently treated more intensively than their health or preferences warrant, which exposes them to hypoglycemia, falls and hospitalization. If the intervention works, pairing continuous glucose monitoring with coaching and values clarification could offer a scalable, real-world way to make treatment decisions safer and better matched to patients' goals, supporting independence and quality of life while reducing avoidable complications and costly health care use.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Francisco Pasquel
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test in a multicenter randomized trial whether automated insulin delivery with a disposable patch pump and remote real-time continuous glucose monitoring increases time in target glucose range (70–180 mg/dL) compared with daily insulin injections plus CGM in hospitalized adults.
Aprill Dawson
Medical College of Wisconsin, WI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine whether a health educator-led smart speaker program is feasible and acceptable for adults aged 50 and older with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes (HbA1c ≥8%), measuring recruitment, retention and interview feedback.
Fahad Saeed
University of Rochester, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine whether the CKD-EDU palliative care intervention, a decision aid plus palliative clinician coaching, reduces decisional conflict at one month in patients aged 75 or older with advanced CKD.
The school
University at Buffalo: 32 labs on PI Pages, $542M a year on research, 316 research doctorates a year.
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