Support for Care Partners of Patients on Home Hemodialysis

Choosing to be a care partner for someone on home hemodialysis is a big decision that can help to ensure that your friend or loved one gets the treatments that they need. But with that, comes a lot of responsibility and unique forms of stress.

For all home hemodialysis care partners, it is important to understand what kind of support is available for you, but also what additional treatment options may be available for your friend or loved one.

CARE PARTNER SUPPORT

It is important to remember that while you are helping to care for someone else, you also need to take care of yourself. When you get the support you need, you will be a more effective care partner and feel more fulfilled in the role. You’ll also avoid the stress that can impact your relationship with your friend or loved one.

Tips for Care Partners

• Plan for respite care in case you need a break
  • Respite care is a type of planned or emergency care that provides relief to families or friends who are care partners to a loved one on dialysis therapy
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle that includes healthy foods, exercise, and getting enough sleep
• Take time for activities that relax you such as taking a bath, going for a walk or listening to relaxing music
• Acknowledge and discuss situations that are making you uncomfortable or stressed
• Build a support system that can help when you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed
• Remind yourself that you are doing the very best job that you can
   

Additional Resources

Atlas Lifestyle is a health and wellness web site that focuses on mind, body, and spirit and is a great resource for patients and care partners alike.

Visit Atlas and incorporate some of those tips and the ones listed below into your daily routine.

Risks and Responsibilities

Patients should review the following information carefully and discuss it with their doctors to decide whether home hemodialysis with NxStage^® systems is right for them.

Users should weigh the risks and benefits of performing home hemodialysis with NxStage systems.

• Medical staff will not be present to respond to health emergencies that might happen during home treatments.
• Users and their care partners will be responsible for all aspects of their hemodialysis treatments from start to finish.
• Users may not experience the reported benefits of home, more frequent or nocturnal hemodialysis with the NxStage systems.
• The NxStage systems require a prescription for use.

Certain forms of home hemodialysis have additional risks.

• If a doctor prescribes more frequent home hemodialysis, vascular access is exposed to more frequent use which may lead to access related complications, including infection of the site. Doctors should evaluate the medical necessity of more frequent treatments and discuss the risks and benefits of more frequent therapy with users.
• If a doctor prescribes “solo/independent” home hemodialysis without a care partner during waking hours, risks of significant injury or death increase because no one is present to help users respond to health emergencies. If users experience needles coming out, blood loss, or very low blood pressure during solo home hemodialysis, they may lose consciousness or become physically unable to correct the health emergency. Users will need additional ancillary devices and training to perform solo home hemodialysis.
• If a doctor prescribes “nocturnal” home hemodialysis at night while the user and a care partner are sleeping, risks increase due to the length of treatment time and because therapy is performed while users and their care partners are sleeping. These risks include, among other things, blood access disconnects and blood loss during sleep, blood clotting due to slower blood flow or increased treatment time or both, and delayed response to alarms when waking from sleep.

APM2051 Rev. F