Italian
Today, March 13, World Kidney Day is celebrated, an opportunity to inform citizens about serious kidney diseases
Often silent and overlooked, kidney diseases can have significant consequences on our health and quality of life.
The kidneys are indeed one of the vital organs of the body. In addition to their purifying action, the kidneys perform several other functions, such as regulating blood pressure, producing vitamin D, and keeping the blood in shape.
Prevention
To keep your kidneys healthy from a young age, there are a few important rules: drink plenty of oligomineral water, avoid excessive salt intake, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, engage in physical activity, and avoid unnecessary medications.
There are in fact some categories of drugs that can damage the kidneys. These include: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; some types of antibiotics; immunosuppressants; diuretics; antivirals; medications for gout.
Kidney diseases
Chronic kidney diseases are a serious public health issue in Italy and around the world. They affect millions of people and are one of the leading causes of premature death. The advancement of medicine has led to increasingly effective treatments, but, despite these advancements, managing these conditions remains complex.
Illness is a condition characterized by progressive and irreversible loss of kidney function. This deterioration of kidney function is commonly measured through the glomerular filtration rate (GFR). The illness is divided into stages, from mild to severe, with the final stage requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant.
In recent years, innovative therapeutic approaches have emerged promising to improve patients’ prognosis and quality of life. For example, self-administered dialysis at home.
For home hemodialysis, the patient always needs the assistance of a partner or caregiver. The correct placement of the needles in the arteriovenous fistula, the sterile techniques for handling the central venous catheter, and the subsequent connection to the dialysis machine lines are quite complex and require a long training process to avoid putting the patient and vascular access at risk, for example from bleeding, extravasation, site aspiration, and infections. For this reason, home hemodialysis is often regulated by specific regional provisions.
Compared to home hemodialysis, training for peritoneal dialysis is less complex. Peritoneal dialysis can be managed by the patient alone even without the assistance of a partner or caregiver. After two or three weeks of “school,” almost all patients or caregivers are self-sufficient in managing peritoneal dialysis. https://www.emodial.it/come-funziona-dialisi-domiciliare/
