Frail, Sarcopenia, and rehabilitation in kidney transplant recipients

Abstract

Kidney transplantation (KT) is a preferable treatment option for the patient with end-stage kidney disease to improve not only medical outcomes (patient- and kidney allograft outcome) but patient-centered outcomes (quality of life and physical function) as well, rather than dialysis therapy. However, KT recipients might obtain several disadvantages regarding physical function, such as obesity and skeletal muscle dysfunction induced by immunosuppression, compared with patients with non-transplant Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Furthermore, the average age of KT has been on the rise in the past few decades and severe vascular comorbid patients can be transplanted nowadays; thus frail KT recipients will steadily continue to increase. Several clinical practice guidelines recommend rehabilitation/physical exercise to KT recipients. Here, we introduce the consequence of fraility among KT recipients and the effect of rehabilitation/physical exercise for these KT recipients from the literature and our experience.