Effect of Six Months of Hemodialysis Treatment on Cognitive Function in Patients with End Stage Chronic Kidney Disease

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the prevalence of cognitive impairment (CI), its facilitating factors, and the effect of hemodialysis treatment on cognitive function (CF) in patients with stage V Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

MATERIAL and METHODS: We investigated the prevalence of CI and its facilitating factors in 66 patients with CKD and analyzed the effect of hemodialysis on CF in 33 new hemodialysis patients. CF was evaluated in all patients by using the standardized mini mental test.

RESULTS: CI was detected in 32% of our patients. We found a positive linear correlation between CI and lower educational status (p<0.001), elderly age (p=0.003), female gender (p<0.001), waist circumference (p=0.016), and urea levels (p=0.018). After 6 months of hemodialysis treatment, the CF score increased 0.5 points (p=0.092) and the rate of the patients with CI decreased to 27.3% from 39.4% (p=0.137). We observed that CI improves less with hemodialysis treatment in patients with high basal diastolic blood pressure (BP), (p=0.042). Although close to statistically significant, the improvement in CI was lower in patients with higher age (p=0.065), high basal mean BP (p=0.056) and basal systolic BP(r=0.269, p=0.135).

CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that evaluation of CI in CKD, elimination of its facilitating factors and not delaying hemodialysis when it is indicated decrease the morbidity and mortality due to CKD.