Millions of people all over the world suffer from kidney failure. There are multiple possible causes of kidney failure, but unfortunately, for a lot of patients, the cause is unknown. Some of the possible causes could be anything from diabetes to high blood pressure to chronic glomerulonephritis. For diabetics, “kidney damage develops in about 20% of patients with both Type 1, young onset, insulin-dependent diabetes, and Type 2, older onset, non-insulin dependent diabetes.”(Guide) A main contributor with diabetes and kidney failure is when there is poor control of the blood glucose and high blood pressure. If it is not controlled it can create kidney failure or, once kidney failure begins, it can make the problem much worse. Another common cause of kidney failure is polycystic kidney disease. Kidney disease is a “genetic problem leading to the development of large kidneys which are enlarged by presence of cysts.”(Guide) Though this disease is common, only about 50-75% of people diagnosed with this disease will experience kidney failure. Another major problem that is associated with kidney failure is chromic glomerulonephritis. It “is caused by a painless inflammation of the glomerulus.”(Guide) Because they are so important to the functionality of the human body, it is easily understood why it is such a big problem when someone’s kidneys start to fail.
Dialysis today is a life saving process. The dialysis machine has three main jobs: “pump blood and watch flow for safety, clean wastes from blood, and watch your blood pressure and the rate of fluid removal from your body.”(Clearinghouse) The machine safely filters out the patient’s blood through the dialyzer, where it is cleaned and then returned back into the patient’s body. The dialyzer is “a large canister containing thousands of small fibers through which [the patient’s] blood is passed.”(Clearinghouse) A cleansing fluid or dialysis solution is pumped around these fibers. The fibers are what permit all of the wastes and toxins to go from the patient’s blood into the solution and out of the blood stream. Patients have to go to the clinic, or dialysis center, around three times a week. Each session there lasts anywhere between three to five hours. This is an intense schedule but scientists have not found an easier solution except this one. Scientists hope that one day they will be able to perform dialysis on a patient while they sleep, but for now, they have only advanced as much to train a family member of the patient to perform dialysis at home. This is the only solution that gives the patients some flexibility, though the number of treatments and hours are still the same and the patient needs a willing volunteer to get the extensive training and to be there to perform it the needed number of times.
Hemodialysis has come a long way from when it was created in 1943. Dr. Willem Kolff and Dr. Belding Scribner certainly changed the future and outlook of millions of people still to come. Although dialysis is not the most painless procedure out there and it is rather time consuming, those doctors have given countless numbers of people a new life that would not have been possible one hundred years ago. There is still a ton of research being done currently trying to make dialysis an easier procedure, but the progress and advancement done by these modern day heroes cannot be more appreciated by the friends and family of dialysis patients, and, of course, needless to say, by the patients themselves who have a chance to live a life.
Bibliography:
Clearinghouse, National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information. "Treatment Methods for Kidney Failure: Hemodialysis". Feb. 18 2007. .
Dictionary.com. "Kidneys". 2006. Random House. Feb. 18 2007. .
Guide, Kidney Patient. "What Causes Kidney Failure?" 2005. Feb. 18 2007. .
Patients, American Association of Kidney. "What Are Kidneys and What Do They Do?" 2007. Feb. 18 2007. .