Since 2006, the management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has become part of routine primary care practice. This book offers primary care practitioners a clinically based, practical understanding of how to diagnose and manage kidney disease (and what this means for the patient).

It also fills the gap between the recent plethora of guidelines, protocols and recommendations on CKD and the questions patients ask in everyday clinical practice. Armed with this deeper understanding, healthcare professionals without specialist training in nephrology will be sufficiently informed to be able to manage renal disease with greater safety, effectiveness and efficiency.

The author, Robert Lewis, has been a Consultant Renal Physician at the Wessex Regional Renal and Transplant Service, Portsmouth, UK, for 15 years. He has held executive roles in the major national renal organisations and has extensive practical experience of educating primary care practitioners on CKD. He was a founder member of the CKD Forum, which aims to improve the interface between primary and secondary care in the management of CKD.

CONTENTS INCLUDE:

• • Estimated GFR: is it a good measure of renal function?
  • Tests for proteinuria: ACR, PCR or dipstick? CKD as a marker of cardiovascular risk
  • The kidneys in older people: disease or benign decline?
  • Preventing progression of CKD
  • What to do when renal function takes an unexpected dip
  • Managing heart disease in the context of CKD CKD and diabetes
  • Medicines management in CKD
  • Management and referral: quick reference algorithms