Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere – Living Well with Kidney Disease;
Being diagnosed with kidney disease can be a huge challenge, both for the patients and those people around them.
Its diagnosis and management, particularly in advanced stages of kidney disease, impacts severely upon their lives by reducing their, and that of family and friends, ability to participate in everyday activities like work, travel and socializing whilst causing numerous problematic side effects – e.g. fatigue, pain, depression, cognitive impairment, gastrointestinal problems and sleep problems.
Moreover, patients with CKD and their family members or other care-partners should be empowered to achieve the health outcomes and life goals that are meaningful and important to them. This will require patients to understand their role, to have the necessary knowledge to be able to engage with clinicians in shared decision-making, as well as developing the skills and support for effective self-management.
Also, patient’s empowerment, partnership and improved communications, combined with a paradigm shift towards a strengths-based approach to care, can inspire confidence and hope in patients that they can live well with CKD.
What can you do for your kidneys?
Kidney diseases are silent killers, which can largely affect your quality of life. There are several ways to reduce the risk of developing kidney disease;
- Keep fit, Be active
- Eat a healthy diet
- Check and control your blood sugar
- Check and control your blood pressure
- Take appropriate fluid intake
- Don’t smoke
- Don’t take over-the-counter anti-inflammatory/pain-killer pills regularly
- Get your kidney function checked if you have one or more of the ‘high risk’ factors;
- you have diabetes
- you have hypertension
- you are obese
- you have a family history of kidney disease
