Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis
Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal DialysisWhen you have Chronic Kidney Disease, you may need dialysis. One type of dialysis is peritoneal, and there are twokinds – automated and continuous ambulatory. In both, your blood is cleaned inside your body. With continuousambulatory peritoneal dialysis, or CAPD, you can be much more mobile, because this type of dialysis doesn’t requireyou to be attached to a machine to clean your blood.In CAPD, the blood is filtered daily through a lining in your abdomen, called the peritoneum. A special washingsolution, called dialysate, is emptied into your abdomen through a tube inserted near your belly button. Over thenext few hours, the solution slowly removes the waste products and extra water from your blood. Then you drainthe solution through the tube and repeat this process. This is known as an exchange and for most people, this isneeded about 4 times a day.“It was life changing.” – Nona, PatientNona Rowen, chose CAPD when her kidneys were failing because she wanted more flexibility with her dialysis.CAPD patients can do their exchanges at work, home or school instead of going to a dialysis center.“I did it here at about 5:30 in the morning, six o'clock. I did it at my desk around lunch because I had an officethat had a door. So that was easy to close off. I did it when I came home from work and I did it before I went tobed at night.” – Nona, PatientThe CAPD process starts with surgery to place a catheter for dialysis.“It’s a tube in the abdomen. It’s about a half hour procedure.” – Dr. Allan Roza, Vascular Access SurgeonThe patient then uses that tube to do the continuous dialysis, as the name implies, 24-hours a day.“You may hook yourself up to a bag of this glucose solution, fill your abdomen with this solution and then youmay walk around throughout for several hours doing your activities and going to work. Those kinds of things.Then you come and you empty that fluid, and you fill yourself up again at the same time with another bag ofsolution.” – Dr. Aaron Dall Nephrologist, Kidney SpecialistYour health care team will teach you what’s involved with CAPD. It definitely will mean some lifestyle changes.“You’re assigned a nurse and they train you on how to do the dialysis, what’s involved and how to start it andstop it.” – Nona, Patient“It's something that I knew four times a day. I had to do I had to take care of my own health.” – Nona, PatientPage 1 of 2This program is for informational purposes only. Publisher disclaims all guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness,or suitability of this video for medical decision making. For all health related issues please contact your healthcare provider.HCRN1001598 EN ContinuousAmbulatoryPeritonealDialysis.pdf© The Wellness NetworkContinuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis“The patients are wonderful about keeping up with that. Keeping a timer on their phone or elsewhere to letthem know or remind them ok it’s time to do this.” – Dr. Aaron Dall Nephrologist, Kidney SpecialistKeeping your catheter area clean and free of germs is also important, to avoid infection.“It’s using alcohol wipes. It’s using other sterile wipes that we provide patients and then using appropriatetechniques like hand washing and wearing gloves when you’re handling your catheter.” – Dr. Aaron DallNephrologist, Kidney SpecialistCAPD definitely takes some getting used to, but for Nona, it was worth it.“I chose to do peritoneal dialysis for the flexibility and because it allowed me to live my life just the way Iwas doing it before.” – Nona, PatientPage 2 of 2This program is for informational purposes only. Publisher disclaims all guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness,or suitability of this video for medical decision making. For all health related issues please contact your healthcare provider.HCRN1001598 EN ContinuousAmbulatoryPeritonealDialysis.pdf© The Wellness Network
© The Wellness Network
