Activity 1.12 - World Kidney Day

• Students will explain what are the causes, manifestations and possibilities of treatment of chronic disease (failure) of kidneys.
• They will evaluate the incidence of disease worldwide and possibilities of prevention.
• They will propose and prepare promotional materials according to the agreed criteria.

• Wordsheet, scientific literature or the Internet, markers, crayons, drawing tools

First, students will be introduced to the problem by discussing with them the fact that most people do not know about their disease because the chronic kidney disease usually does not hurt. Then we will ask them how they would ensure an early diagnosis of the kidney disease with the affected persons so that the treatment was easier and thus there was also a lower risk of other diseases. Then we will let the students search from relevant sources for information about kidney function, causes and manifestations of chronic disease (failure) of kidney, prevention and treatments, disease incidence in the world's population. Based on this information the students agree upon a uniform and pre-arranged target of advertising campaign and suggest possible forms and design of advertisement. Their works along with the informative article can be then published in the school magazine or they can hold discussions with classmates where they present their findings on the given topic.

Note: We recommend downloading a couple of current flyers from the World Kidney Day from the Internet, printing them out and at the beginning of the activity handing them out among the students

Causes, manifestations and treatment

Chronic renal insufficiency is characterized by progressive loss of renal function due to renal disease or renal damage with a system disease of organism (diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure). Such damage often runs for a long time without obvious symptoms causing serious problems to the patient.

However, damage to kidneys caused by any chronic disease, leading to a reduction in their function, can be very accurately measured. It is expressed as glomerular filtration rate or amount of filtered urine, which occurs in the kidneys. According to the degree of reduction in glomerular filtration, the chronic disease can be divided into five stages.

A current stage of renal impairment is also reflected in the selected treatment - from medication, diet and regime measures in mild manifestations to a dialysis or transplantation with function loss greater than 80-90%.

Renal insufficiency after its discovery usually accompanies the patient throughout the rest of his/her life and often tends to spontaneously worsen despite the provided treatment. Therefore, patients are under close supervision of professional nephrology outpatient clinics, where they undergo a regular physical examination, blood pressure checks, and blood and urine tests.

Rate of deterioration of renal function is dependent on the nature of underlying disease, the effectiveness of therapeutic measures, but also on the approach of the patient to the therapy. Renal failure (the last stage of chronic kidney disease, when it is vitally necessary to artificially replace the kidney function) may therefore occur within a year, as well as after several decades.

The first clinical symptoms appear only when the kidney function drops to 35 - 40% of its original capacity, but unfortunately, very often even much later. These include headache, weakness, rapid onset of fatigue, anorexia, recurrent vomiting, frequent urination (especially at night), increased thirst, pale skin, high blood pressure, growth failure in children.

Should the renal function worsen until the stage of their failure, we can also observe the apathy, weakness, headache, shortness of breath, vomiting, diarrhoea, oedema, chest pain, bone pain, pallor, and itchy skin. At this point the start of dialysis treatment is clearly necessary. Even so it applies that each patient should be assessed individually with regard to the renal function and overall condition of the patient.

Prevention

Do not smoke, avoid being overweight, regular exercise, healthy diet, stick to water intake, reasonable consumption of alcohol, regular preventive examinations

The incidence in the world's population is about 10%.

Source: http://www.ledviny.cz/nemoci-ledvin

Proposal of advertisement:

Television advertising, radio advertising, walking advertisement, flyer, poster, billboard, banner, etc.

• Students formulate their own questions. A large amount of questions arise through this activity.