Kidney Disease

Kidney Disease: From advanced disease to bereavement provides guidance to renal and palliative care professionals dealing with patients with advanced kidney disease, who are approaching end of life. The book describes the tools used to achieve a good death including advance care planning, symptom control law and ethics, recognizing dying, withdrawal of treatment, and a holistic approach to patient care. By using case histories, the book highlights how to facilitate good communication between patients, families and their renal and palliative teams. There are also chapters on support for carers and bereavement. Revised and updated, this new edition is written in a bullet point style to provide an indispensable guide to the day-to-day management of patient care. This pocketbook will be an essential guide for nephrologists, renal nurses, nephrologist trainees, and doctors and nurses working in palliative care. A portable, practical, and accessible handbook on a complex group of patients Illustrates how theory is applied in practice, using case histories of real patients Gives appropriate doses of drugs, which is often difficult in renal failure Highlights how to facilitate good communication between renal and palliative care teams New to this edition New material on subjects such as peritoneal dialysis, prognostic indicators, a review of the measures of quality of life near death, and tools for managing end of life cases New chapters on audit and research in kidney end of life care and symptom assessment and trajectories Edwina A. Brown, Consultant Nephrologist, Honorary Professor of Renal Medicine, Imperial College Kidney and Transplant Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK, Fliss E. M. Murtagh, Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Palliative Care, Cicely Saunders Institute, King's College London, UK, and Emma Murphy, BRC Clinical Research Training Fellow, Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine King's College Hospital, London, UK CONTENTS 1: End-stage kidney disease 2: Comorbidity 3: Complications of end-stage kidney disease 4: Causes of death in end-stage kidney disease 5: Health-related quality of life in end-stage kidney disease 6: Symptom assessment and trajectories 7: The management of pain 8: Non-pain symptoms in end-stage kidney disease 9: How to deliver best supportive and palliative care 10: The place of supportive and palliative care in end-stage kidney disease 11: Communicating with patients and families 12: Ethical and legal considerations 13: Management of the last few days 14: Spiritual and religious care 15: Caring for the carers 16: Wendy Lawson: Drug doses in advanced chronic kidney disease 17: Fliss E.M. Murtagh: Audit and research in kidney end of life care