Remote monitoring of peritoneal dialysis: Why? Where? How?

SummaryPeritoneal dialysis as a modality can offer its patients several advantages including increased independence, no need for regular hospital or center visits, and fewer lost work hours. However some, disadvantages such as leaving the complete onus on the patient to do his own therapy and being far away from the nephrologist can lead to unwillingness or a fear of choosing PD. Over the last few years, our PD unit has developed a PD remote monitoring protocol using simple and easily available, technology like digital cameras, and mobile telecommunication along with a regular home visit, schedule. The aim of this protocol is to reduce the mental burden of PD, to reduce the complexity of the, procedure, to keep the nephrologist well informed about the patient status, and to ensure adherence to, the proper technique. In this article we explain our process and corroborate its usefulness with the, help of two studies conducted in our center.

對於病人而言，腹膜透析 (PD) 的優點包括較佳的獨立性、定期院所回訪的豁免、及較少工作時間的喪失；缺點則是病人必須完全承擔自身治療的責任、及較少接受腎科醫生診察的機會，可能降低病人選擇接受PD的意願。在過去數年間，我們的PD中心發展出一套PD遠距監測辦法，透過採用簡單且平常的途徑，如數位攝影機與流動通訊系統，並合併定期的家訪實施，其目的包括：減少病人對PD的心理負擔、降低整個PD實施過程的複雜程度、確保腎科醫生對病人狀況的掌握、及確保病人對正確技巧的遵循。本文對此辦法的實施作出介紹，並透過本中心的2項相關研究，對其潛在用途作出探討。