This article will discuss the evidence for the self-management of long-term conditions, with a focus on chronic kidney disease (CKD). Self-management of CKD can include activities to control and manage blood pressure (BP); changes to diet such as reduced salt intake; smoking cessation; and understanding of the action and side-effects of prescribed medicines.
Back to Basics: What goes wrong in chronic kidney disease
Vascular Risk Checks in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease
Improving Organ Donation Registration in Primary Care
Organ transplants can save or dramatically improve lives, yet figures for 11 February 2009 showed there were 7,903 people in the UK still on waiting lists for transplants, with the majority waiting for a kidney transplant. Last year, more than 400 people died while on the transplant waiting list.
Back to Basics: Timetable of tests for chronic kidney disease
The Renal Social Worker: an Essential Team Member for Good Renal Care?
Renal services do not need renal social workers to keep patients alive.Nephrologists, transplant surgeons and renal nurses can manage that challenge without our involvement. So why are social workers attached to a renal service? Are they just an added extra – an upgrade in the service rather than an essential component of it?
Taking an ECG: Getting the Best Possible Recording
An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a quick and non-invasive way of recording the heart’s electrical activity. One of its many uses is in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction, angina, and rhythm disturbances. Although the ECG is a simple and easy test to perform, it is vital to obtain the best possible recording because of its importance.
Keeping it in the Family: Reducing Risk in Relatives of Patients with Premature Heart Disease
In this article, we look at how a primary prevention team introduced a systematic approach to target people who had premature coronary heart disease in their family and offer them a comprehensive cardiovascular disease risk assessment.Based on the findings from the EUROACTION study, the next step was to involve their partners based on the recognition that they often share risk factors due to lifestyle.
Choosing the Right Pharmacotherapy to Help Patients Stop Smoking
Most smokers want to stop smoking and intend to stop at some point, according to research. Nearly half of all smokers expect not to be smoking in a year’s time, but only two to three in every hundred actually stop smoking permanently each year. It is widely recognised that healthcare professionals have an important role to play in helping patients to stop smoking, but what is the best way to achieve this?
C-reactive Protein (CRP): an Emerging Marker of Cardiovascular Risk
The major risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) include high blood pressure, dyslipidaemia,diabetes, and smoking, all of which can be managed with lifestyle and therapeutic interventions. C-reactive protein is emerging as a useful new risk marker.
How to Use Brief Motivational Interviewing
Helping people to change risky behaviour is notoriously difficult, but brief motivational interviewing has been found to be helpful. In this article, we look at the research supporting this patient-directed counselling style and how to use it in clinical practice.
Anticoagulation in Practice: Why it Matters that the Dose of Warfarin is Spot On
More and more nurses in primary care are involved in monitoring international normalised ratio (INR) levels and advising patients on warfarin doses as anticoagulation clinics move out of secondary care and into primary care. In this article we explore why warfarin is prescribed, how to monitor patients on the drug and what to look out for in terms of interactions with prescribed medicines, over-the-counter drugs and foods. We also need to be able to advise on lifestyle interventions that go hand-in-hand with taking warfarin.
