AKF's third annual Dialysis at Home Summit brings the kidney community together to learn about home dialysis

On Oct. 3, the American Kidney Fund (AKF) hosted our third annual Dialysis at Home: Kidney Community Event. This free online event provided participants with the opportunity to hear from patients, home dialysis advocates, and health professionals about home dialysis options, including the quality of life benefits they provide. This year's summit included sessions on patient and provider care collaboration, home dialysis infection prevention and management, cooking and nutrition, and chronic kidney disease coexisting conditions. The day opened with a message from AKF President and CEO LaVarne A. Burton, who gave an overview of the summit, emphasized the aim of the event to meet attendees where they are and encouraged attendees to stay involved beyond this annual event.    

Did you miss the summit? Here are additional highlights from two of the sessions:

Managing Common Health Conditions Associated with CKD While Navigating Home Dialysis 

People living with chronic kidney disease often must manage health conditions associated with risk factors of their kidney disease. This panel included three remarkable panelists: Ashia Lee, director of patient education for the Arthritis Foundation, Dr. Quasim Butt, an interventional nephrologist and Kathy Wong, a registered dietitian nutritionist from DaVita Kidney Care. The panelists shared ways to control health conditions such as anemia, gout, hyperkalemia (high potassium) and hyperphosphatemia (high phosphorus) while navigating home dialysis. They also highlighted the important benefits of working with your health care team to manage or alleviate the effects of these conditions through healthy eating, treatment options and medication management. Ashia Lee discussed the importance of patient advocacy and communication. She also encouraged participants to discuss gout with not only their doctors but other support systems in their life as well, expressing the importance of building a community to lean on during flare-ups and rough moments. 

Cooking and Conversation: Lunch Time with The Cooking Doc®

People experiencing kidney failure and who are on dialysis are encouraged to follow a kidney-friendly food and fluid plan developed by their doctor and dietitian. To help attendees understand how to do this, we were delighted to offer an interactive cooking demonstration by Dr. Blake Shusterman, also known as "The Cooking Doc." Often, people living with kidney disease are told what they cannot eat. This session provided an insight and instruction-based approach to cooking. 

Dr. Shusterman guided participants through three tasty recipes — a fruit-and-spice-infused water, a mashed avocado and chickpea sandwich, and a yummy crustless pumpkin pie. Dr. Shusterman was joined by clinical dietitian Janelle Gonyea and the two discussed aspects of nutrition in relation to home dialysis. 

All sessions of the summit are available for you to watch here. You can also download AKF's home dialysis resources, available at KidneyHealthForAll.org. These resources include a home dialysis decision aid as well as a fact sheet in which you can compare and contrast dialysis options side by side.

AKF is grateful to Amgen for its support of this educational initiative.

The one-day summit is part of AKF's Kidney Health for All™ initiative. Kidney Health for All was launched in 2021 to address four specific areas where there are racial inequities in kidney disease: prevention and awareness, home dialysis, participation in clinical trials and access to transplant.