Kidney Donor Found via Facebook

We all know that some people act as anonymous altruistic kidney donors, and how amazing they are. This news item refers to how one young lady found a donor.

Louise Sach was told she was in kidney failure aged 8 and wouldn't make it through adulthood without a transplant.

Louise Sach, 28, had reached a stalemate in her search for a donor after being told her kidney function was starting to seriously deteriorate last year.

In a last bid to find a match, Louise set up a Facebook page to see if she could attract a donor.

She hoped an old friend or colleague might come forward.

The last thing she expected was a complete stranger to give her the kidney she so badly needed.

Incredibly, that's exactly what happened.

Kayleigh Wakeling, 33, from Hertfordshire stepped forward and now the two are best friends.



You can read the full news item on the Mirror's website.

Kidneys and the Brain

Kidney disease doesn't just affect a patient's body, it's hard on their brain too—but no one really knows to what extent. Scientists at Queens University, Canada, are conducting studies into the kidney-brain connection.

Patients on dialysis are being assessed by the KINARM, a state-of-the-art robotic system developed at Queen’s University, to measure the brain effects of kidney disease. The KINARM precisely measures what’s happening in an individual’s brain or nervous system by testing their ability to perform ordinary movements and tasks.

Leading the research is Dr. Boyd, a critical care doctor and neurologist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre who looks at the links between oxygen levels and brain injury in intensive care patients. He says the project was sparked by a casual conversation with Dr. Rachel Holden, a kidney disease specialist at KHSC whose patients are often in intensive care. “We were talking about sensors for tissue oxygenation in the brain, she suggested that we should use them on her patients,” says Dr. Boyd.

Early indications have been startling, he says. “We’ve been told by the KINARM team that our cohort of patients are some of the most cognitively impaired they’ve ever seen.”  

While there is some evidence showing that kidney disease, especially in its later stages, can affect some brain functions such as attention and memory, the conventional pen-and-paper tests used to track these effects produce variable and subjective results – and they can’t diagnose the motor effects of brain injury, says Dr. Boyd.

The researchers will compare patients’ test scores and oxygenation data to study which procedure – hemodialysis or home dialysis -- has the better effect on patients’ cognitive function.

You can read the full report on the University's website.