Dialysis and Elders' Functional Status

The first months of dialysis may be dangerous ones for elderly patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), according to researchers from Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA; University of California, San Francisco; and the San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA. They found that functional status markedly declined among nursing home residents in the first three months after starting dialysis. One year later, only one in eight residents retained a predialysis functional level.