2020 Volume 53 Issue 5 Pages 251-258
The comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is a tool that can be used to identify the problems faced by elderly people during activities of daily living (ADLs). The results of the CGA can be utilized to provide appropriate patient care and aid doctors, and medical support staff can also share aspects of patients’ conditions through the tool. We considered that a CGA was required for evaluating the physical, mental, and social conditions of elderly hemodialysis (HD) patients who required nursing, assisted care, and/or help with ADLs. Therefore, we developed a new HD-CGA assessment tool, which consists of the CGA plus 8 new test items. These items relate to dialysis, exercise capacity, and social environmental status. We evaluated the effectiveness of this new tool in HD patients. There was a significant positive correlation between the patients’ HD-CGA scores and their conditions. Furthermore, the lower the HD-CGA score, the worse the survival rate and the higher the risk of death. As elderly HD patients have specific dialysis complications, their physical, mental, and social conditions vary on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, being able to reliably evaluate each patient’s status/condition is important. In conclusion, the HD-CGA is a useful tool for evaluating physical/mental/social conditions in elderly HD patients, and it might be applicable to preventative interventions in such patients.
