2016 WORLD KIDNEY DAY CELEBRATION
THEME: KIDNEY DISEASE & CHILDREN - ACT EARLY TO PREVENT IT
The 2016 World Kidney Day holds on 10th March, 2016. It is a day set aside to educate and to create awareness about our Kidneys. This year’s celebration focuses on “Kidney Disease and Children – Act Early to Prevent It.” In the campaign for this year, World Kidney Day organisers are calling on people to move their legs on the day in form of exercise, dance, etc. World Kidney Day raises awareness about Chronic Kidney Disease and stimulates discussions, education and policy development for improved prevention and treatment around the world.
World Kidney Day team passionately believes it is important we make the general public aware of kidney diseases which affect millions of people worldwide, including many children who may be at risk of kidney disease at an early age. It is therefore crucial that we encourage and facilitate education, early detection and a healthy life style in children, starting at birth and continuing through to old age, to combat the increase of preventable kidney damage including acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease and to treat children with inborn and acquired disorders of the kidney.
In this campaign year, we are urging medical personnel, the media and other agencies should join forces once again to inform parents, caregivers, young patients, policy makers, the government and the general public of the importance of identifying and treating childhood kidney diseases, instilling an awareness of the risks for their future from kidney damage that originates in childhood, therefore building healthier future generations!
Kidney disease can affect children in various ways, ranging from treatable disorders without long-term consequences to life-threatening conditions.
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a serious condition that develops suddenly, often lasts a short time and may disappear completely once the underlying cause has been treated and if the patient receives the needed medical management, but it can also have long-lasting consequences with life-long problems. On the other hand, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) doesn’t disappear with treatment and tends to worsen over time. CKD eventually leads to kidney failure (end-stage kidney disease - ESKD) and needs to be treated with a kidney transplant or blood-filtering treatments (dialysis) for life.
Acute Kidney Injury or AKI
An example of AKI is hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS. This is a kidney condition that develops when red blood cells are destroyed and block the kidneys’ filtering system. When the kidneys and glomeruli—the tiny units within the kidneys where blood is filtered—become clogged with the damaged red blood cells, they are unable to do their job. If the kidneys stop functioning, a child can develop acute kidney injury—the sudden and temporary loss of kidney function. Hemolytic uremic syndrome is a common cause of AKI in children.
Another cause of AKI, including children, is trauma such as burns, dehydration, bleeding, injury or surgery. Trauma can cause very low blood pressure, which in turn can result in insufficient blood supply to the kidneys leading to acute kidney failure.
Chronic Kidney Disease or CKD
CKD in children can be caused by birth defects (e.g. children born with only one kidney or with kidneys with abnormal structures), hereditary diseases (e.g. polycystic kidney disease), infection, nephrotic syndrome (a collection of symptoms with loss of protein in urine and water and salt retention in the body that indicate kidney damage), systemic diseases (involving many organs of the body including the kidneys, such as Lupus), urine blockage or reflux (e.g. problems of the urinary tract and bladder). From birth to age 4, birth defects and hereditary diseases are the leading causes of kidney failure. Between ages 5 and 14, kidney failure is most commonly caused by hereditary diseases, nephrotic syndrome, and systemic diseases. Between ages 15 and 19, diseases that affect the glomeruli are the leading cause of kidney failure.
Children’s kidney diseases are kidney diseases for life. The majority of children with kidney disease progress to end-stage kidney diseases in adulthood. Therefore there is need to act fast by adopting some healthy life styles and preventive measures for adults and children too.
Some of the measures are these 9 Golden rules which can be applied to children are;
Keeping fit and active through regular exercise.
Keep regular control of your blood sugar level.
Monitor your blood pressure always
Eat healthy and keep your weight under check
Do not smoke
Maintain healthy fluid intake
Do not take over-the-counter pills on a regular basis
Check your kidney function if you have one of the high risk factors.
If children below 10 year have been diagnosed of diabetes and Kidney failure, it is important to subject our children to routine medical checkups because early detention will go a long way in helping people with kidney diseases to get good treatment on time and save them from kidney failure.
- Excerpt from World Kidney Day website.
Tabugbo Morgan Uzoma
Kidney Care Association
Delta State
