Maintaining Employment: A Key Component of Health-Related Quality of Life for Dialysis Patients

I was speaking to a group of end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients at a symposium recently and met a 50-year-old man with polycystic kidney disease who had just started on in-center hemodialysis. He had been followed by a nephrologist for a number of years prior to progressing to ESRD, and had been well prepared by conventional standards to start dialysis while being placed on the cadaver transplant list. He had an arteriovenous fistula, and began dialysis uneventfully as an outpatient. He said that physically he was adapting well to dialysis, but was concerned and depressed because he quit his job when he knew dialysis was imminent. His doctor had not had a conversation about this issue with him and he didn’t know what to do or how he was going to continue to take care of his family. He asked me why dialysis patients had to stop working and he was surprised to hear me say that he could continue working, and that his doctor and dialysis facility should be helping him work through this issue and get back to work. This story is only too common. Read more…