Genetics/Ethnicity- Renal Failure/Anemia. Paper Example

When a person suffers from anemia, the body contains less red blood cells than they should be under normal conditions. Since the red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen throughout the body, the lack of them implies less oxygen is carried to the organs and tissues. The low levels of oxygen in tissues and organs imply that they might function abnormally. In most cases, anemia occurs to patients already suffering from kidney failure. When the kidney fails, and the patient is under dialysis or kidney transplant, anemia develops. Besides, ethnicity and genetics are risk factors that increase the prevalence of the disease. For instance, the whites and the Indians have lower prevalence compared to the blacks and the mixed ethnic groups. The prevalence of blacks is 45 to 47% while the prevalence for the whites and the Indians is 18% to 35% (Nalado et al., 2019).

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Anemia develops when kidneys are damaged or are diseased. Diseased kidneys fail to make sufficient EPO, which consequently makes bone marrow produce to low levels of red blood cells. When the levels of red blood cells are low, less oxygen circulates in the body organs and tissues. Typically, people suffering from kidney failure experience huge blood loss during hemodialysis and also the boost is low due to low levels of nutrients such as iron, folic acid and vitamin B12. With low nutrients, the hemoglobin is not produced and this contributes to low levels of blood. Hence, the presence of kidney disease worsens the anemic condition in a patient.

Even when both diseases exist, treatment is possible to hinder further development and advancement. According to Milovanov et al. (2018), due to insufficient intestinal absorption and iron retention, patients suffering from anemia can be injected with iron intravenously. However, controlling the iron levels also requires additional treatment of the residual renal function, cardiac hemodynamics, blood pressure, and hydration. To control the four problems, the patient just is fed with a diet with low protein-containing sodium restriction. All these medications need to be accompanied by EPO and antihypertensive therapy to maintain Hb levels and roles. When the Hb level increases slowly at a rate of less than 10g/l monthly, it is an indication that the EPO treatment is insufficiently arising from iron deficiency (Milovanov et al., 2018). Hence, to correct the poor response, iron is injected into the patient which improves the levels of iron and offset the deficiency. As the EPO treatment is being done, the iron deficiency correction should be done at a fast rate through the intravenous administration of iron (Stauffer & Fan, 2014). During hemodialysis, the patient loses a lot of blood, and this lowers the levels of iron and consequently the Hb levels. It is, therefore, necessary to boost the blood and compensate for the lost blood. When women are involved, more blood is lost and a hence greater supply of iron is required compared to men (Milovanov et al., 2018). The actual doses for the drugs include 1.2mcg/kg once every four weeks and 0.45 mcg/kg weekly for methoxy polyethylene glycol epoetin-beta and darbepoetin alfa.

A nurse educator first understands the entire case about the patient and then decides the best course of action. The patient is suffering from two diseases namely, kidney failure and anemia. Anemia is a comorbid disease that arises as a result of kidney failure. With the two types of illnesses, combined treatment is needed and according to Milovanov et al. (2018), EPO administration, maintenance therapy, and iron supplement using darbepoetin-alfa and erythropoietin receptor activator namely methoxy polyethylene glycol epoetin-beta. To ensure effective drug administration and efficient response early diagnosis of anemia improves the patient's quality of life and lowers medication costs. When detected early, the initial treatment minimizes and thwarts further development of the disease. Hence, the nurse educates the patients to present themselves in the hospital early enough for diagnosis.

The nurse educator makes use of the printed materials that cover the symptoms that are adequate to send one to the hospital for diagnosis. Further, the nurse educator targets the patients in the hospital by calling them for an educative session about the disease. Also, before the patient are released to go home for medication, they are educated about the best ways to manage and maintain the disease through proper diet and timely drug administration.

Adherence to the drug prescription helps in ensuring the optimal functioning of the drugs. Hence, when patients and the nurses are trained on how to ensure that they adhere to the prescriptions effectively, they attain positive outcomes. Hence, the greatest aspect is positive adherence to the guidelines given.

Certain diseases develop as a result of the development of certain other diseases. Comorbid diseases take advantage of the weakened immune system in a patient suffering from a specific disease. In a patient with renal failure, anemia is likely to develop. The treatment of the anemia and kidney failure is the use of darbepoetin-alfa, methoxy polyethylene glycol epoetin-beta, and EPO administration.

References

Milovanov, Y., (Kozlovskaya), L., Milovanova, L., Fomin, V., Mukhin, N., & Kozevnikova, E. et al. (2018). Anemia in chronic kidney disease and after kidney allotransplantation (Systematic Review). Current Topics in Anemia. doi: 10.5772/intechopen.69746

Nalado, A. M., Mahlangu, J. N., Waziri, B., Duarte, R., Paget, G., Olorunfemi, G., & Naicker, S. (2019). Ethnic prevalence of anemia and predictors of anemia among chronic kidney disease patients at a tertiary hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. International journal of nephrology and renovascular disease, 12, 19-32. doi:10.2147/IJNRD.S179802

Stauffer, M., & Fan, T. (2014). Prevalence of anemia in chronic kidney disease in the United States. Plos ONE, 9(1), e84943. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0084943