Global Family Doctor - Wonca Online

World Kidney Day 2010

World Kidney Day is celebrated worldwide every year on the second Thursday of March. The next Word Kidney Day will be held on Thursday 11 March 2010 and will focus on Diabetes, the leading cause of kidney failure. World Kidney Day is an awareness campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the importance of our kidneys to our overall health and to reduce the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide.

As a medical or allied health professional you are in a unique position to combat kidney diseases through early detection and prevention approaches. On the occasion of World Kidney Day, we want to highlight those people at a higher risk of developing kidney disease to increase early detection in your everyday clinical work.

Those at high risk include:

• Diabetic patients
• Patients with high blood pressure
• People with a family history of kidney diseases
• People of certain ethnic backgrounds: African Americans, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans
• The overweight or obese population
• People over 50
• Smokers

Sadly, kidney diseases are silent killers with many patients only finding out that they have a kidney condition when they reach a state of kidney failure. However, a simple blood test can detect the diseases in time and allow for appropriate treatment which in many cases can halt or amend disease progression.

What can you do?

• Use the occasion of World Kidney Day to disseminate information in your clinical practices about the important role of the kidneys and continue to inform your patients about kidney diseases and the risk factors throughout the year in your everyday practice
• Monitor and educate your patients who are at particular risk for kidney diseases
• Get in contact with your local or national nephrology society or your local or national kidney foundation to find out how you can participate in initiatives, help disseminate information and become otherwise involved
• Review and refer to the World Kidney Day brochures from the World Kidney Day website that focus on kidney and related diseases
• Review the guidelines on how to detect kidney diseases and how to implement a screening program

Your active engagement in the kidney cause is essential. We invite you to join our fight to increase awareness about the important role our kidneys play to prevent the onset of the disease where possible and detect and treat people with CKD.