Bioimpedancia: herramienta habitual en los cuidados de los pacientes de diálisis peritoneal (DP)

the state of hydration of patients should be considered an indicator of adequate dialysis, as well as influencing directly on the patient's quality of life. bioimpedance is an objective method for nutritional and hydric monitoring and assessment of patients. the regular measurements can be a useful aid to clinical assessment and the identification of variations in hydration and nutrition, allowing for suitable changes in conduct. in our unit, we considered using bioimpedance as a tool to detect the state of hydration and the corporal composition of patients in order to draw up an individualized care plan. a study was carried out at our centre analysing, in a sample of 8 patients on the peritoneal dialysis programme, the bioimpedance measurements routinely taken at each check-up. the variables recorded were age, cause of renal disease (rd), weight, height, sex, time on dialysis, blood pressure (bp), glomerular filtration (gf), number of hypotensors, diuretics and results obtained from the bioimpedance measurements. we can conclude that bioimpedance detects patients with non-volume-dependent hypertension. in this cases it is fundamental not to force the increase in uf to reduce the bp, as this would have an adverse effect on residual renal function. accordingly, bioimpedance is a useful, practical and easy to use tool that contributes objective information for monitoring patients on peritoneal dialysis.