Training
You’ll come in to the dialysis facility to do your treatments three times a week with your training nurse to guide you. You’ll have a step-by-step training manual to follow. You can take notes in the manual and bring it home with you to use.
Most often, home hemodialysis training takes a few weeks. You will learn how to:
- Monitor and care for your access
- How to take your blood pressure and record it
- Set up a place in your home to do your treatments
- Set your fluid removal goal, based on your weight and blood pressure
- Set up the dialysis machine and test all of the alarms
- Insert and tape down the needles
- Monitor the treatment and keep good treatment records
- Clean the filter on the water treatment system
- Take water samples to test the safety of your water
- Order enough supplies of each type to last you a month
- Recognize problems to report to your home dialysis nurse or doctor
- What to do in case you have a problem with your machine
- Safely dispose of medical wastes
This may seem like a lot to learn, but your training team won’t send you home until both you and they are sure that you’ve got it. You’ll practice treatments with your training nurse on hand to watch to be sure you’re doing all of the steps correctly. You’ll also have information to take home and review, and you can always call your home dialysis nurse if you have any questions.
