Haemodialysis at home: review of current dialysis machines

Abstract

Only a minority of patients with chronic kidney disease treated by hemodialysis are currently treated at home. Until relatively recently, the only type of hemodialysis machine available for these patients was a slightly smaller version of the standard machines used for in-center dialysis treatments. Areas covered: There are now an alternative generation of dialysis machines specifically designed for home hemodialysis. The home dialysis patient wants a smaller machine, which is intuitive to use, easy to trouble shoot, robust and reliable, quick to setup and put away, requiring minimal waste disposal. The machines designed for home dialysis have some similarities in terms of touch-screen patient interfaces, and using pre-prepared cartridges to speed up setting up the machine. On the other hand, they differ in terms of whether they use slower or standard dialysate flows, prepare batches of dialysis fluid, require separate water purification equipment, or whether this is integrated, or use pre-prepared sterile bags of dialysis fluid. Expert commentary: Dialysis machine complexity is one of the hurdles reducing the number of patients opting for home hemodialysis and the introduction of the newer generation of dialysis machines designed for ease of use will hopefully increase the number of patients opting for home hemodialysis.

HCI for health and wellbeing: Challenges and opportunities

“…The functioning of this mechanical device depended on the development of three novel products: cellophane, Teflon and heparin. Hospital dialysis units became more common in the 1960s and technology that enabled people to dialyse at home was developed around the same time (Polaschegg, 2010;Haroon & Davenport, 2018). Polaschegg (2010) presents a history of the development of dialysis technology, focusing particularly on physiological and physics aspects of the therapy.…”

“…Historically, most home haemodialysis machines have been slightly smaller versions of the machines used in hospitals, but this is now changing, with more machines specifically designed for home use becoming available (Haroon and Davenport, 2018). To facilitate frequent dialysis that minimizes the disruption in people's lives, nocturnal haemodialysis has been promoted; however, uptake of this has been slow.…”

Factors affecting uptake of home hemodialysis among self‐care dialysis unit patients

“…These innovative designs requiring smaller storage space may allow a higher penetration of HHD for inner-city dwellers. 26 The need to be competent in self-cannulation remains a substantial barrier to transitioning to HHD, with almost one-third in both cohorts expressing some degree of hesitancy. The adoption of button-hole (same site) cannulation or single needle dialysis may help overcome this.…”

Design and Development of the Novel Technology for the Treatment of Patients with the Acute and Chronic Renal Failure

“…As considered, efficient hemodialysis is applied into the various applications like Nocturnal dialysis, which is performed at night during sleeping and it wants around 7 hours of time [9] [10]. The NX Stage is a company that currently provides the homely hemodialysis, which comforts the patient by rendering dialysis at home [18] [24]. Continuous renal replacement therapy is accident mode dialysis and also long term dialysis is performed around 24 hours.…”