KIDNEY DISEASE PART 2

Course overview

More than 430,200 patients were undergoing dialytic therapy in the United States at the end of 2011, the latest year for which statistics are available. Dialysis is one form of renal replacement therapy that replaces renal filtration for patients with end-stage renal disease, whose glomerular filtration is less than 15 mL/minute and who are clinically symptomatic. Dialysis is the life-sustaining process of cleansing the blood of accumulated waste products and the removal of retained fluid. The two most common forms of dialysis are hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. This module provides nurses with an overview of dialysis and the nursing management of patients with ESRD.