The mean age of patients with end-stage renal disease increases steadily. The elderly on dialysis have significant comorbidity and require extra attention to meet their dialysis, dietary, and social needs, and some may need to be treated at a long-term care facility such as a nursing home (NH). Providing dialysis and caring for elderly patients in a nursing home (NH) presents a number of challenges. Few data are available in the literature about elderly patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) in an NH. This paper describes our experience of starting and maintaining a peritoneal dialysis program in three community-based nursing homes.
Results: During the period 2004-2008, after the nursing home personnel had received appropriate training, we established a PD program in three community-based nursing homes and admitted 38 patients on peritoneal dialysis. We educated 112 NH staff over the three-year period. Mean age of the patients at entry was 77.3 + or - 8.5(18.4%) were male. The main causes of end-stage renal disease were diabetes mellitus (DM) 21 (55.8%) and hypertension 13 (34.2%). Comorbid conditions included DM (27, 71.1%), hypertension (26, 68.4%), coronary artery disease (18.5%), chronic heart failure (11, 28.9%), cerebrovascular event (12, 31.6%), and cancer(3, 7.9%). The average total time on chronic peritoneal dialysis was 36.5 + or - 29.8 months, (median 31, range: 1-110 months) of which the average time in the NH program, as of the time of this report, was 18.4 + or - 13.1 months (median 15.5, range: 1-45 months). During the study period, 16 (42.1%) of the patients died, 2 (5.3%) transferred to HD, 2 (5.3%) stopped treatment, and 18 (47.4%) are still in the program. Actuarial patient survival from entry into the NH program was 89.5% at six months, 60.5% at 12 months, 39.5% at 24 months and 13.2% at 36 months. Patient survival from initiation of chronic dialysis was 89.5% at six months, 76.3% at 12 months, 63.1% at 24 months, and 39.5% at 36 months. We observed 28 episodes of peritonitis with a rate of one episode every 40.3 treatment-months. Two PD catheters had to be replaced, giving a rate of one in every 362.5 patient months.
Conclusion: Our results with elderly patients in a nursing home show an excellent patient and technique survival and a low peritonitis rate. With appropriate training of the NH nursing staff, peritoneal dialysis could be performed successfully in these nursing homes. Successful peritoneal dialysis in a nursing home requires a close collaboration between the nursing home staff and PD dialysis unit.