Hemodialysis care is given to a patient whose blood stream
has excess water and harmful chemical.
Hemolialysis procedure is used to remove this excess water
and harmful chemical from the blood stream of the patient
through a machine that gets the blood from the artery of the
patient and pumps it through a dialyzer. This dialyzer is a
part of the hemodialysis machine where the blood is cleaned.
The dialyzer is a machine with very thin tubes and extremely
small holes through which the blood passes. A special fluid,
called dialysate, is also passed through this tube but this
fluid does not mix with the blood of the patient. Instead the
excess water and the harmful chemicals from the blood of the
patient flow through the tiny holes in the dialyzer tubes and
mix with this special fluid. The flowing dialysate then flushes
out this extra water and harmful chemicals from the blood while
fresh dialysate keeps flowing through the tubes of the
dialyzer. The cleaned blood from the dialyzer, then, flows back
to the body of the patient through a vein. Hemodialysis care is
given to a patient who is suffering from a chronic kidney
failure, also known as chronic renal failure. Chronic kidney
failure is a long term illness caused when the kidneys of the
patient work less and less until they completely shut down.
These kidneys loose the ability to flush out the waste from the
body of the patient causing symptoms like dizziness, vomiting,
problems in thinking, loss of consciousness and even death.
Patients suffering from such chronic kidney failure require
hemodialysis care to help flush out the waste from their
bodies. Depending on the condition of the patient, he or she is
advised on the schedule of hemodialysis. Generally hemodialysis
is done thrice a week for patients and each session may last
anywhere between three hours to five hours. A patient can
choose the place of taking hemodialysis care either in a
hospital, a special hemodialysis centre or even in his or her
own home. A hemodialysis centre, however, has special rooms fit
with equipments like the dialyzer which are required during the
process of hemodialysis. A patient needing hemodialysis care
needs to learn to do the hemodialysis process by himself or
herself. The patient care giver can train the patient or the
spouse in the process of using the hemodialysis machine and the
various signals and how to respond to those signals on the
machine.