NEW YORK—The National Kidney Foundation and Baxter Healthcare have partnered to develop a free brochure to help inform kidney disease patient about their home dialysis options.
“Have You Thought About Dialysis at Home?” is a brochure containing information for patients considering whether peritoneal or home hemodialysis can help them meet their clinical and lifestyle needs.
The brochure, developed through the NKF and Baxter’s “Partnership in Education,” is available at no cost to patients through the NKF website at http://www.kidney.org/patients/pdf/12-10-0337_KBA_HomeDialysisBaxter.pdf.
“Patients and their families need to make the treatment choice that will work best for their health and lifestyles”, said Gigi Politoski, NKF Senior Vice President for Programs. “We believe that the patient is the most important member of the health care team and that an informed patient will make the best decision. This new publication is intended to educate and spark conversation between patients and their clinicians to help them make the treatment choice that’s right for them.”
The brochure provides an overview of treatment options for kidney failure, in-depth descriptions of the various methods of home dialysis, answers to commonly asked questions regarding patient safety, retaining residual kidney function and medical history. The brochure also addresses lifestyle issues, fact and fiction regarding home dialysis and offers a list of important questions to ask the healthcare team as well as additional resources to learn more about home dialysis options.
“Dialysis treatment is like a part-time job. As a home dialysis patient, I can plan my life around my treatments, not the other way around,” said Jennifer Castillo, a career coach from the San Francisco Bay area, who’s been on dialysis for more than thirty years. “After reading the NKF’s new brochure on home dialysis, I felt inspired to learn more and talk with other home care patients.”
