Total Renal Care Approach for Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease

Advances in dialysis medicine have enabled end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients to live longer. ESRD patients and their family members experience the illness in everyday life, and patients are required to manage their own disease to live longer. Psychological flexibility benefits a person and leads to healthier outcomes. Constructing an independent-minded attitude toward their lives with ESRD is preferably needed.

Holistic care is needed to see patients with ESRD and their families because they are faced with life-long illness. From the scholastic standpoint, integration of natural science and humanities is needed. After some collaboration with philosophers, sociologists, and cognitive behavioral therapists, we propose a practical method which we call the total renal care (TRC) approach. With the TRC approach, we help patients and their families by adopting a psychosocial educational approach according to the stage of attitude toward their life with ESRD. In the predialysis care and even in the end-of-life process, selection of therapy based on the individual patient's life and their viewpoints on family care burden are important. This enables patients and their families to make selections for renal replacement therapy including home dialysis, renal transplantation, and dialysis discontinuation, as well as hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Key Messages: ESRD is a lifelong disease, and acquiring psychological flexibility would benefit patients and lead to healthier outcomes. Sharing the notion of TRC with their caregivers would strengthen this.