Prediction of Clinical Events in Hemodialysis Patients Using an Artificial Neural Network

Advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) requires routine renal replacement therapy (RRT) that involves hemodialysis (HD) which may cause increased risk of muscle spasms, cardiovascular events, and death. We used Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method to predict clinical events during the HD sessions. The vital signs, captured using a non-contact bed-sensor, and demographic information from the electronic medical records for 109 patients enrolled in the study was used. Weka Workbench software was used to train and validate the ANN model. The prediction model was built using a Multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm as part of the ANN with 10-fold cross-validation. The model showed mean precision and recall of 93.45% and AUC of 96.7%. Age was the most important variable for static feature and heart rate for dynamic feature. This model can be used to predict the risk of clinical events among HD patients and can support decision-making for healthcare professionals.