[Non-discriminatory treatment of aged patients by dialysis]

The increase in the number of old people treated by dialysis is a result both from the demographic evolution of the industrialized countries and from the changes occurred in the behaviour of physicians, families and the elderly themselves, faced to illness and death. A great number of old people with chronic renal failure are nevertheless kept away from the dialysis, most often under the pretext of doubtful medical contra-indications or because of an insufficient autonomy. The quality of the family environment, along with the social insertion intervene significantly in the evolution of the drawbacks associated to the renal failure and result in being determining criteria in the decision of carrying out or not the treatment. Any selective policy based on the loneliness or the financial situation of the elderly appears particularly unfair. The equipment which we have our disposal nowadays should enable us to treat all these patients, under the condition, however, of developing the program of peritoneal dialysis as well as the different alternatives to the center hemodialysis.