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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffIn hemodialysis, a machine filters wastes, salts and fluid from your blood when your kidneys are no longer healthy enough to do this work. Hemodialysis is the most common way to treat advanced, permanent kidney failure. The procedure can help you carry on an active life despite failing kidneys.
Hemodialysis requires you to follow a strict treatment schedule, take medications regularly and, often, make changes in your diet.
Hemodialysis is a serious responsibility, but you don't have to shoulder it alone. You'll work closely with your health care team, which will include a kidney specialist and other professionals with experience managing hemodialysis.
- Hemodialysis. National Kidney Foundation. http://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/hemodialysis.cfm. Accessed Oct. 19, 2010.
- Treatment methods for kidney failure: Hemodialysis. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/Kudiseases/pubs/hemodialysis. Accessed Oct. 19, 2010.
- Himmelfarb J, et al. Hemodialysis. In: Brenner BM, et al. Brenner and Rector's the Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/books/page.do?eid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-3105-5..50060-8&isbn=978-1-4160-3105-5&type=bookPage§ionEid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-3105-5..50060-8--cesec2&uniqId=223035191-9. Accessed Oct. 19, 2010.
- Hemodialysis. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals. http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec17/ch234/ch234b.html. Accessed Oct. 19, 2010.
- Crawford PW, et al. Treatment Options for End Stage Renal Disease. Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice. 2008;35:407.
- Schmidt RJ, et al. Psychiatric illness in dialysis patients. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Oct. 19, 2010.
- Perl J, et al. Home hemodialysis, daily hemodialysis, and nocturnal hemodialysis: Core curriculum 2009. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 2009;54:1171.
- Anderson CF (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Oct. 23, 2010.
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