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Last updated: 11/24/2009
Because dialysis is an ongoing treatment process for many patients, a baseline for normalcy can be difficult to gauge. Puffiness in the patient related to edema, or fluid retention, may be relieved after dialysis treatment. The patient's overall sense...
of physical well being may also be improved.
Monthly blood tests to check the levels of urea, a waste product, help to determine the adequacy of the dialysis prescription. Another test, called Kt/V (dialyzer clearance multiplied by time of treatment and divided by the total volume of water in the patient's body), is also performed to assess patient progress. A urea reduction ratio (URR) of 65% or higher, and a Kt/V of at least 1.2 are considered the benchmarks of dialysis adequacy by the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI) of the National Kidney Foundation.
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This narrated collection of artist's images shows the anatomy of the kidney at the gross and microscopic levels. Kidney physiology is also explained which describes how blood is filtered by the kidney to produce urine.
Nurse working in a kidney dialysis unit. (Custom Medical Stock Photo. Reproduced by permission.)
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In medicine, dialysis (from Greek "dialusis", meaning dissolution, "dia", meaning through, and "lusis", meaning loosening) is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function (renal replacement therapy) due to renal failure. Dialysis may be used for very sick patients who have suddenly but temporarily, lost their kidney function (acute renal failure) or for quite stable patients who have permanently lost their kidney function (stage 5 chronic kidney disease). When healthy, the kidneys maintain the body's internal equilibrium of water and minerals (sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfate) and the kidneys remove from the blood the daily metabolic load of fixed hydrogen ions. The kidneys also function as a part of the endocrine system producing erythropoietin and 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol). Dialysis is an imperfect treatment to replace kidney function because it does not correct the endocrine functions of the kidney. Dialysis treatments replace some of these functions through diffusion (waste removal) and ultrafiltration (fluid removal).
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In 2000, the estimated number of doctor visits and outpatient hospital visits by patients aged 20 or older with UTI or cystitis listed as a diagnosis was of 8.27 million visits (1.41 million men; 6.86 million women) with UTI as the primary diagnosis.
From: NKUDIC
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