A recent report suggests that switching from treatment at a dialysis centre to treatment at home could be a solution to the lack of sleep problem encountered by some dialysis patients due to restless legs syndrome.
If you suffer from pins and needles or creepy-crawly feelings in your legs, then you may be suffering from restless leg syndrome; and if you are a dialysis patient, then you are about four times more likely to have this problem, and end up with sleepless nights. The patient is kept awake due to the legs twitching.
The continual sitting for prolonged periods during clinic based dialysis is one possible reason for dialysis patients suffering from this problem.
An investigation of patients who had home dialysis for a few hours each day showed improvements in restless leg syndrome and a lasting improvement in other sleep problems such as insomnia and daytime sleepiness.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Are Dialysis Patients X-rays a Risk?
A recent report from Italian researchers suggests that regularly x-raying dialysis patients to monitor their health is itself a health risk.
Marco Brambilla of Maggiore della Carità University Hospital in Novara, Italy said that the majority of routine x-rays to monitor a dialysis patients health gave no useful information. But the overall result for some patients was being exposed to the equivalent of 1000 chest scans a year! They followed 106 Italian dialysis patients' medical records over a three year period to come to this conclusion.
Many patients under went CAT scans (Computer Axial Tomography, to produce a 3-d image) and these can result in a dose of x-rays up to 100 times that of a standard x-ray. It was suggested that CAT scans are sometimes done without considering the cumulative risk or checking what other x-rays may have been given.
One of the problems is that increased exposure to x-rays is considered to be a cancer risk, and unless the process is properly recorded and monitored, the dose received over a long period of time can be quite high. The number of x-rays given while monitoring a patient's health varies from country to country, and some can be related to other health problems that a kidney failure patient may suffer. An earlier study (no reference available at present) suggested that about 2% of all cancers in the United States were caused by exposure to radiation during CAT scans.
Marco Brambilla of Maggiore della Carità University Hospital in Novara, Italy said that the majority of routine x-rays to monitor a dialysis patients health gave no useful information. But the overall result for some patients was being exposed to the equivalent of 1000 chest scans a year! They followed 106 Italian dialysis patients' medical records over a three year period to come to this conclusion.
Many patients under went CAT scans (Computer Axial Tomography, to produce a 3-d image) and these can result in a dose of x-rays up to 100 times that of a standard x-ray. It was suggested that CAT scans are sometimes done without considering the cumulative risk or checking what other x-rays may have been given.
One of the problems is that increased exposure to x-rays is considered to be a cancer risk, and unless the process is properly recorded and monitored, the dose received over a long period of time can be quite high. The number of x-rays given while monitoring a patient's health varies from country to country, and some can be related to other health problems that a kidney failure patient may suffer. An earlier study (no reference available at present) suggested that about 2% of all cancers in the United States were caused by exposure to radiation during CAT scans.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
One way to support your team!
This story has appeared in literally hundreds of places, and I thought I might as well mention it too.
Tom Walter is the baseball coach for Wake Forest.
Wake Forest signed new hopeful Kevin Jordan last year
- nothing unusual so far.
Two months after this Jordan developed a serious kidney problem, which resulted in him needing regular dialysis. Jordan learned last April that he had ANCA vasculitis, an autoimmune swelling disorder caused by abnormal antibodies, and wound up on dialysis. The antibodies can cause blood and protein to leak into the urine and could result in kidney failure. And unfortunately his relatives were not a good match for a transplant.
Now the interesting bit - his coach Walter turned out to be a match for a kidney transplant to the new signing. So the coach decided to donate a kidney, and the transplant was carried out on 8th February. Both are said to be recovering normally.
Now I've heard of fans having a tattoo with their team's star player's name on it or something similar (which can be a bit of a problem if they sign for some other team a year or two later), or wearing shirts with the star's name on it (less of a problem if they leave the team). But giving a kidney to a player is a bit exceptional. So exceptional that I found 466 news pages mentioning this act of generosity!
You have to admire the man for doing this, of that there is no doubt.
I wonder if the coach would ask for it back if Jordan one day signed for another team...
Tom Walter is the baseball coach for Wake Forest.
Wake Forest signed new hopeful Kevin Jordan last year
- nothing unusual so far.
Two months after this Jordan developed a serious kidney problem, which resulted in him needing regular dialysis. Jordan learned last April that he had ANCA vasculitis, an autoimmune swelling disorder caused by abnormal antibodies, and wound up on dialysis. The antibodies can cause blood and protein to leak into the urine and could result in kidney failure. And unfortunately his relatives were not a good match for a transplant.
Now the interesting bit - his coach Walter turned out to be a match for a kidney transplant to the new signing. So the coach decided to donate a kidney, and the transplant was carried out on 8th February. Both are said to be recovering normally.
Now I've heard of fans having a tattoo with their team's star player's name on it or something similar (which can be a bit of a problem if they sign for some other team a year or two later), or wearing shirts with the star's name on it (less of a problem if they leave the team). But giving a kidney to a player is a bit exceptional. So exceptional that I found 466 news pages mentioning this act of generosity!
You have to admire the man for doing this, of that there is no doubt.
I wonder if the coach would ask for it back if Jordan one day signed for another team...
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Home dialysis viable following kidney transplant failure
Reported in DailyHealthReport, and many other sites.
Many patients who have a transplant end up returning to dialysis. The statistics show that there is very little survivability differences for such patients when using home dialysis compared to using hospital dialysis. There have been many studies on the survivability rate for the two treatments, and all report this same result. But, according to the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology, less than 20% of those returning to dialysis choose home dialysis. Home dialysis is a huge cost saver, and empowers the patients, freeing them from the tedium of continual visits to a clinic.
This latest research was carried out by doctors at St. Micheal's Hospital, University of Toronto.
Interestingly, while there is an increase in the number of patients receiving dialysis, the number on home dialysis is decreasing.
Many patients who have a transplant end up returning to dialysis. The statistics show that there is very little survivability differences for such patients when using home dialysis compared to using hospital dialysis. There have been many studies on the survivability rate for the two treatments, and all report this same result. But, according to the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology, less than 20% of those returning to dialysis choose home dialysis. Home dialysis is a huge cost saver, and empowers the patients, freeing them from the tedium of continual visits to a clinic.
This latest research was carried out by doctors at St. Micheal's Hospital, University of Toronto.
Interestingly, while there is an increase in the number of patients receiving dialysis, the number on home dialysis is decreasing.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Donate your kidney and get out of jail
Reported by the BBC News and other news sites.
Two sisters jailed for an armed robbery that netted them a total of $11 / £7 have just been released on the condition that one donates a kidney to the other. Jamie Scott's daily dialysis costs the state roughly $200,000 / £129,000 per year.
They received a life sentence for an armed robbery in 1993 (but of course the news report only mentions the bare minimum of details to make it look an unjust sentence). The report mentions that protesters marched through the state capital last year, calling for their release and claiming that the sentences were harsh.
Prison officials are reported to have said that they no longer think the sisters, who are eligible for parole in 2014, are a threat to society. Obviously the saving in dialysis costs had no bearing on their release...
Two sisters jailed for an armed robbery that netted them a total of $11 / £7 have just been released on the condition that one donates a kidney to the other. Jamie Scott's daily dialysis costs the state roughly $200,000 / £129,000 per year.
They received a life sentence for an armed robbery in 1993 (but of course the news report only mentions the bare minimum of details to make it look an unjust sentence). The report mentions that protesters marched through the state capital last year, calling for their release and claiming that the sentences were harsh.
Prison officials are reported to have said that they no longer think the sisters, who are eligible for parole in 2014, are a threat to society. Obviously the saving in dialysis costs had no bearing on their release...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)