Grant: Project Grant

Patients with kidney failure require dialysis to clean their blood and remove extra fluid. Despite receiving this life-saving treatment, they have numerous symptoms and other medical problems that reduce their quality and quantity of life. There have been a few small studies suggesting that exercise may be of benefit to people with kidney failure. However, patients have stated that there are many barriers that prevent them from exercising, including not knowing how to exercise safely and stay motivated. It also remains unclear whether patient identified important quality of life outcomes such as energy, strength and sleep can be improved with exercise. For this reason, we have designed a multi-centre pilot trial that will teach dialysis patients how to exercise using Nordic walking poles, and help maintain their motivation with an online support group and encouragement from dialysis unit staff. Nordic walking poles have been used safely in other patient populations such as people with Parkinson's disease or severe heart failure. We will determine dialysis patient interest in being recruited to such a study and their ability to maintain interest in the exercise program. We will also assess the potential benefits of our exercise program by measuring muscle strength, quality of life, symptoms, and sleep using validated surveys over 1 year. We will ultimately determine if this exercise program can decrease a dialysis patient's risk of being hospitalized and the length of time spent in hospital. If proven beneficial and liked by patients, we will use the information from this study to design an multi-centre trial to determine if exercise for patients with kidney failure is cost effective in order to persuade 'payers' to support the program.