Five stages of Chronic Kidney Disease
Depending on the kidney's impairment, CKD is divided into five stages of increasing severity.
Once kidney disease develops to an advanced stage, it is often only possible to slow down further progression. CKD stage 5 - the worst stage - is defined as total or near-total loss of kidney function. At this stage, the organism cannot tolerate a further decrease of metabolic excretion and the blood must be cleansed artificially.
There are two types of renal replacement therapy: haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.
As a consequence of dialysis, an adaptation of lifestyle, a change of nutritional habits and concomitant pharmaceutical therapy are inevitably required, so that dialysis patients must shoulder a substantial burden in their daily lives.
