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Home Dialysis Therapies
Lori Harwood, MSc, RN, CNeph(C)
Rosemary Leitch, RN, CNeph(C)

Home dialysis is an optimal option for patients requiring renal replacement therapy. These therapies are more cost effective than in-center therapies, and the benefits to patients are well documented. Despite this evidence for these therapies, home hemodialysis (HHD) is often only available as a secondary treatment choice and with little support in traditional hemodialysis (HD) centers (Branson & Moran, 2004). It is timely to include a chapter on home therapies in this textbook, as there is a renewed interest in longer HD times, more frequent HD, and home modalities. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an extremely important home dialysis modality and is discussed in this chapter but it is detailed elsewhere in this textbook. The focus of this chapter is mainly on HHD.                                                                                     



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