Older adults with advanced chronic kidney disease saw their mental and physical quality of life worsen in the year before undergoing dialysis. However, the decline in their condition stabilized after dialysis was initiated, new research has found.
Many older adults with kidney failure worry that while kidney dialysis may extend their physical lives, it may negatively affect their mental and physical health-related quality of life (HRQol). But a new study by researchers from the Netherlands suggests that not only may dialysis lengthen the life for older adults, it may also improve their mental and physical well-being.
“Very few studies have investigated the change in quality of life before and after dialysis,” said Dr. Esther N.M. de Rooij, MD, of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, in a news release. “We are the first to do so in a large international cohort of older patients. We hope these results can inform older patients with kidney failure who have decided to start dialysis on what to expect in changes related to their health-related quality of life.”
The Netherlands researchers studied data from 457 patients, ages 65 and older, with advanced chronic kidney disease during the year preceding and the year after undergoing dialysis.
According to the conclusions: “Patients experienced a clinically relevant decline of both mental and physical health-related quality of life before dialysis initiation, which stabilized thereafter. These results may help inform older patients with kidney failure who decided to start dialysis.”
The study was published in the July 28 issue of the Clinical Journal of American Society of Nephrology.
