Chair-Side Behavioural Therapy helps in reducing depression and improving quality of life for kidney patients

Depression has been identified as a serious and prevalent issue in dialysis patients. It has been linked to shorter life spans also. A specially adapted chair-side cognitive behavioural therapy has been found by Daniel Cukor and team. The therapy is given while the patient undergoes dialysis. It provides self-help skills, ways to deals with emotional and psychological behaviour by teaching independence and mastery over them. Studies were done on 59 patients undergoing dialysis in New York. Out of them 33 were given the chair-side therapy for three months. Successive assessments after three and six months showed a reduction in depressions scores amongst those given therapy. 89% of the patients diagnosed with depression at the beginning of the study were cured of the same compared to 38% from those not given. Quality of life and ability to control fluid intake between dialysis sessions improved greatly for patients administered with the treatment.