PRE- AND POSTDIALYSIS SESSION PERFORMANCE OF CHRONIC RENAL FAILURE PATIENTS ON COGNITIVE TASKS

Abstract

Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), like many serious maladies, can interfere with a child's ability to learn. Although some information is available on adults, a review of the literature has revealed little information on children and adolescents. This study which is part of a longitudinal research project, examined the pre- and postdialysis session performance of (N-11) CRF patients on tasks of attention, learning, and problem solving. Contrary to findings with adults, essentially no differences were found between pre- and postdialysis session performance. Slight but no statistically significant performance gains were found between first vs. second test administration of each cognitive measure. The results were discussed in terms of the methodological problems and relevance of conducting research on children and adolescents with CRF, and the implementation of a long-term research program designed to collect cognitive data on such patients over the initial diagnosis, dialysis, and post-transplant periods.