Active clinical trials for "Kidney Diseases"

There is a large gap between the care seriously ill patients want and the care they receive. Advance directives (ADs) offer an opportunity for patients to express specific end-of-life preferences to avoid unwanted care. As promising as ADs may be for improving the quality of care near the end of life, rates of AD completion remain low and previous efforts to encourage their completion have had limited success. Principles of behavioral economics, such as the effects of defaults and other framing effects, may offer a novel approach to bridge the gap in end-of-life care. The goal of this study is to test whether the framing effect of expanding choice sets can increase the completion of and specification of choices within advance directives.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a nurse-led case management programme on home exercise training for haemodialysis patients. We hypothesised that: a. There is no significant difference in physical functioning between participants receiving the nurse-led home exercise training programme and those receiving the comparison care. b. There is no difference in depression between participants receiving the nurse-led home exercise training programme and those receiving the comparison care. c. There is no difference in quality of life and health perception between participants receiving the nurse-led home exercise training programme and those receiving the comparison care. d. There is no difference in physical activity levels between participants receiving the nurse-led home exercise training programme and those receiving the comparison care. e. There is no difference in perceived benefits and barriers of exercise between participants receiving the nurse-led home exercise training programme and those receiving the comparison care. The study was a randomized controlled trial conducted in two haemodialysis units of two tertiary hospitals in Nanjing, China. Participants were randomly assigned to either study group or comparison group. Participants in both groups received the in-center exercise training (20 minutes) before haemodialysis sessions weekly for 6 weeks and were instructed to perform exercise at home. The in-center training was focused on flexibility and strengthening exercise. Patients were encouraged to have cardiovascular exercises at home which will improve their cardiovascular conditions and endurance. The list of cardiovascular exercise included brisk walking, bicycling, jogging. Participants in the study group were instructed to start walking or brisk walking at low duration and gradually progress to a maximum of 30 minutes daily per week. To facilitate exercise progression, the nurse case managers discussed exercise benefits, explored exercise barriers and developed mutual goals with patients. The nurse motivated them and checked the exercise behaviors to ensure adherence to the recommended exercise regime. The nurse case managers interviewed the study group patients weekly for six weeks and biweekly for another six weeks. Participants in the comparison group only participated in the in-center exercise training. The comparison group patients received usual care from the nurse without the interviews and mutual goals developed.

Patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, attributed in part to increased oxidative stress, inflammation and dyslipidemia. Intervention with a naturally occurring dietary supplement may improve certain biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress and improve the lipid profile.

Kidney transplantation, especially living donor kidney transplant (LDKT), offers patients in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) 3 to 17 additional years of life and improved quality-of-life compared to remaining on dialysis. Unfortunately, LDKT education in dialysis centers occurs inconsistently, especially for minorities and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. To ensure more informed transplant decision-making, through a previous HRSA grant, Dr. Waterman designed the Explore Transplant (ET) education program based on the Transtheoretical Model of Behavioral Change. Through a previous trial, an earlier version of ET, delivered face-to-face with patients while they were undergoing dialysis, was shown to increase patients' DDKT and LDKT knowledge. However, additional research exploring dialysis providers' ability to integrate ET into their care revealed that multiple patient, provider, and system barriers limited the degree to which transplant education could be improved. Thus, a more comprehensive case-management program to educate patients through external organizations may be needed to supplement ongoing transplant education within dialysis centers. For this grant, the investigators propose to test the effectiveness of another replicable solution for disseminating ET education on a broad scale: Partnering with a large health insurance organization to deliver video-guided transplant education supported by telephone and mail. The Missouri Kidney Program (MoKP) is a state-wide organization whose mission is to serve and educate kidney patients, particularly those who are economically disadvantaged. Since MoKP subsidizes the costs of dialysis medication for low-income ESRD patients, they operate as an insurance company would with respect to their 1200-patient member group. With 900 dialysis patients currently being managed by the MoKP, the investigators will conduct an eight-month, group randomized controlled trial (GRCT) where 540 patients will be randomized to receive: (1) no additional education other than from their dialysis center; (2) a video-guided, four-part Explore Transplant (ET) program delivered via the internet or mail; or (3) a video-guided ET program with discussion facilitated by a telephone case manager.

This study consists of two parts. Part 1 evaluates the effect of renal impairment on the PK and PD of a single dose of ASP8232. In addition, the safety and tolerability will be assessed. Part 2 evaluates the PK, PD, and safety and tolerability of multiple doses of ASP8232 compared with placebo in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) subjects with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

It is well established that renal hypoxia is associated with the development of renal injury. The purpose of this study is measure the alterations in renal blood oxygenation after angiotensin II converting enzyme inhibition. The understanding of kidney adaptive mechanisms to renin angiotensin system effects in healthy subjects will be useful for the early detection of renal disease and for the development of new therapies to decrease the progression of the disease and its consequences.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the safety and tolerability of LY2623091 after multiple oral dosing in healthy men and women of non-childbearing potential. Two cohorts of 16 subjects will participate in 2 dosing periods. Treatment assignment will be double-blind for LY2623091 and placebo (negative control), and open label for eplerenone (positive control).

The proposed randomized controlled trial will test the SPIRIT (Sharing the Patient's Illness Representations to Increase Trust) intervention designed to improve discussions about end-of-life care between patients and their surrogate decision makers. Subjects will be 200 Caucasian and African-American patients with ESRD (end-stage renal disease) recruited from outpatient dialysis clinics and their chosen surrogate decision makers. We hypothesize that (1) SPIRIT will lead to significantly less patient decisional conflict and significantly greater dyad congruence and surrogate decision making confidence than the standard care control at 2, 6, and 12 months post-intervention and (2) SPIRIT will reduce surrogate decisional conflict and psychosocial morbidities at 2 weeks after the patient's hospitalization requiring surrogate decision making significantly more than the standard care control.

The purpose of this study is to examine the variation between individuals in blood lipid metabolites, and the changes in these metabolites in response to omega-3 fatty acids in patients with immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) and in healthy subjects. The hypothesis is that measuring variation among individuals and changes in response to omega-3 fatty acids comprehensively by using metabolomics will help to identify those individuals who are responders and those who are non-responders to omega-3 fatty acids as an anti-inflammatory intervention.

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is associated with high rates of cardiovascular events and death. In addition, DKD is the major cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the United States. The purpose of this study is to prevent progression of kidney disease among patients with DKD and uncontrolled hypertension (HTN) using a tailored, telehealth intervention that simultaneously address medication management and modifies multiple risk factors through a combination of patient self-monitoring, behavioral therapies and education to optimize adherence and self-efficacy. Additional goals are to improve control of cardiovascular disease risk factors and reduce cardiovascular events and death. We hypothesize that patients with DKD and uncontrolled HTN who receive this intervention will have less progression, or a smaller decrease in kidney function, after 3 years when compared to the education control group.