Physical activity in hemodialysis patients on nondialysis and dialysis days: Prospective observational study.

INTRODUCTION: The physical decline in patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) is associated with morbidity and mortality. Prior studies have attempted to promote physical activity at the time of dialysis; however, physical activity patterns on the nondialysis days are unknown. This study aimed to quantify physical activity on dialysis and nondialysis days in hemodialysis patients using a wearable actigraph. METHODS: In this prospective study, subjects receiving hemodialysis were recruited from two outpatient dialysis units in urban San Diego and rural Imperial County, CA, between March 2018 and April 2019. Key inclusion criteria included: (1) receiving thrice weekly hemodialysis for ≥3 months, (2) age ≥ 18 years, and (3) able to walk with or without assistive devices. All participants wore a Fitbit Charge 2 tracker for a minimum of 4 weeks. The primary outcome was the number of steps per day. Each participant completed the Physical Activity Questionnaire, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9, the PROMIS Short form Fatigue Questionnaire at baseline, and the Participant Technology Experience Questionnaire at day 7 after study enrolment. FINDINGS: Of the 52 recruited, 45 participants (urban = 25; rural = 20) completed the study. The mean age was 61 ± 15 years, 42% were women, 64% were Hispanic, and the mean dialysis vintage was 4.4 ± 3.0 years. For those with valid Fitbit data (defined as ≥10 hours of wear per day) for 28 days (n = 45), participants walked an average of 3688 steps per day, and 73% of participants were sedentary (<5000 steps/day). Participants aged >80 years were less active than younger (age < 65 years) participants (1232 vs. 4529 steps, P = 0.01). There were no statistical differences between the groups when stratified by gender (women vs. men [2817 vs. 4324 steps, respectively]), urbanicity (rural vs. urban dialysis unit [3141 vs. 4123 steps, respectively]), and dialysis/nondialysis day (3177 vs. 4133 steps, respectively). Due to the small sample size, we also calculated effect sizes. The effect size was medium for the gender differences (cohen's d = 0.57) and small to medium for urbanicity and dialysis/nondialysis day (d = 0.37 and d = 0.33, respectively). We found no association between physical activity and self-reported depression and fatigue scale. The majority of participants (62%, 28/45) found the Fitbit tracker easy to wear and comfortable. DISCUSSION: ESKD participants receiving hemodialysis are frequently sedentary, and differences appear more pronounced in older patients. These findings may assist in designing patient-centered interventions to increase physical activity among hemodialysis patients.

Individualized Cool Dialysate as an Effective Therapy for Intradialytic Hypotension and Hemodialysis Patients' Perception.

Intradialytic hypotension (IDH) is the most common dialytic complication. Recurrent episodes of ischemia secondary to hemodynamic instability are associated with cardiomyopathy, increased risk of thrombosis of arteriovenous fistula, decreased quality of life, and increased mortality. Cool dialysate may be an effective approach to reducing intradialytic hypotension by promoting peripheral vasoconstriction. Most studies to date are small and do not employ individualized cool dialysates (ICD). The study consisted of standard and cool phases, with patients as their own controls. During the standard phase, participants underwent hemodialysis (HD) at their usual dialysate temperature at 37°C for six consecutive hemodialysis sessions. In the cool phase, the dialysate temperature was set at the core baseline temperature -0.5°C for six more sessions. We compared hemodynamic parameters during the standard and cool phases. A total of 93 participants were included. The number of IDH episodes during the standard and cool phases were 3.3 ± 2.8 and 2.0 ± 2.2 per patient respectively (P < 0.001). Other hemodynamic parameters including lowest intradialytic mean arterial pressure were significantly increased with ICD. We found that there was a high baseline rate of feeling cold among all participants and it increased after the implementation of ICD; however, the dropout rate was approximately 5%. ICD is an effective tool to decrease the frequency of IDH in the HD population and we provide a pragmatic, real-world approach to implement this technique.

A Primer on Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement for Interprofessional Chronic Kidney Disease Care: A Path to Joint Commission Certification.

Interprofessional care for chronic kidney disease facilitates the delivery of high quality, comprehensive care to a complex, at-risk population. Interprofessional care is resource intensive and requires a value proposition. Joint Commission certification is a voluntary process that improves patient outcomes, provides external validity to hospital administration and enhances visibility to patients and referring providers. This is a single-center, retrospective study describing quality assurance and performance improvement in chronic kidney disease, Joint Commission certification and quality outcomes. A total of 440 patients were included in the analysis. Thirteen quality indicators consisting of clinical and process of care indicators were developed and measured for a period of two years from 2009-2017. Significant improvements or at least persistently high performance were noted for key quality indicators such as blood pressure control (85%), estimation of cardiovascular risk (100%), measurement of hemoglobin A1c (98%), vaccination (93%), referrals for vascular access and transplantation (100%), placement of permanent dialysis access (61%), discussion of advanced directives (94%), online patient education (71%) and completion of office visit documentation (100%). High patient satisfaction scores (94-96%) are consistent with excellent quality of care provided.

Effect of Acupuncture or Massage on Health-Related Quality of Life of Hemodialysis Patients.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of acupuncture and massage on health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) among end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. DESIGN: Pre-post test design. SETTING: A hemodialysis (HD) unit located in a university hospital. INTERVENTION: Participants were given the option to choose between 20 min sessions of massage or acupuncture therapy once a week for 8 weeks by licensed acupuncturists and massage therapists while undergoing their usual HD session in the University of California, San Diego Chronic HD unit. OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants were asked to complete pre- and postintervention surveys, which consisted of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS™) Global Health Short Form and a Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item Scale. RESULTS: A total of 101 patients were included in this study. The average age was 57.6 (standard deviation: 14.5) dialysis vintage 7.5 years, 58% patients were male and the most common etiology of ESRD was diabetic nephropathy (45%). Patients had multiple comorbidities as can be expected for this population with the most common being hypertension (94%), diabetes mellitus (53%), and cardiovascular disease (53%). In this brief intervention study, we were able to find a trend toward improvement in overall HR-QOL as determined by the PROMIS score (p = 0.08). PROMIS mental raw score improved with intervention, which was statistically significant (p = 0.034). CONCLUSION: Use of complementary therapies such as massage and acupuncture during HD may contribute toward improvement of HR-QOL and thus should be considered when addressing overall health status of these patients.

Heritable influence of DBH on adrenergic and renal function: twin and disease studies.

BACKGROUND: Elevated sympathetic activity is associated with kidney dysfunction. Here we used twin pairs to probe heritability of GFR and its genetic covariance with other traits. METHODS: We evaluated renal and adrenergic phenotypes in twins. GFR was estimated by CKD-EPI algorithm. Heritability and genetic covariance of eGFR and associated risk traits were estimated by variance-components. Meta-analysis probed reproducibility of DBH genetic effects. Effect of DBH genetic variation on renal disease was tested in the NIDDK-AASK cohort. RESULTS: Norepinephrine secretion rose across eGFR tertiles while eGFR fell (p<0.0001). eGFR was heritable, at h(2) = 67.3±4.7% (p = 3.0E-18), as were secretion of norepinephrine (h(2) = 66.5±5.0%, p = 3.2E-16) and dopamine (h(2) = 56.5±5.6%, p = 1.8E-13), and eGFR displayed genetic co-determination (covariance) with norepinephrine (ρG = -0.557±0.088, p = 1.11E-08) as well as dopamine (ρG = -0.223±0.101, p = 2.3E-02). Since dopamine ß-hydroxylase (DBH) catalyzes conversion of dopamine to norepinephrine, we studied functional variation at DBH; DBH promoter haplotypes predicted transcriptional activity (p<0.001), plasma DBH (p<0.0001) and norepinephrine (p = 0.0297) secretion; transcriptional activity was inversely (p<0.0001) associated with basal eGFR. Meta-analysis validated DBH haplotype effects on eGFR across 3 samples. In NIDDK-AASK, we established a role for DBH promoter variation in long-term renal decline rate (GFR slope, p = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The heritable GFR trait shares genetic determination with catecholamines, suggesting new pathophysiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic approaches towards disorders of GFR as well as CKD. Adrenergic activity may play a role in progressive renal decline, and genetic variation at DBH may assist in profiling subjects for rational preventive treatment.