title: Time to recovery after a hemodialysis session: impact of selected variables.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients maintained on hemodialysis (HD) have an impaired health-related quality of life (HRQOL). One factor that has been suggested to contribute to this impairment is the prolonged recovery time after completing a conventional HD session. The present study was designed to carefully examine the time to recovery (TTR) in patients maintained on three times/week conventional HD and evaluate the clinical and demographic features associated with the TTR.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred and sixty-seven patients on conventional three times/week HD were studied during three successive HD treatments. Patients were asked how long it took them to recover from their previous session. Detailed demographic and clinical data as well as data involving the most recent HD session were reviewed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean ± SD age was 66.4 ± 15.7 and the mean duration of renal replacement therapy was 40.1 ± 37.6 months. The mean time to recovery was 246 ± 451 min. A multivariate regression analysis including age, gender, number of comorbidities, months on renal replacement therapy, occurrence of hypotension during dialysis, amount of ultrafiltration and duration of dialysis session revealed that none of these covariates was significantly associated with TTR from HD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study is important since it clarifies that the TTR after an HD session is not related to various demographic and clinical factors that one might have expected would impact on this variable.
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Kwabena T
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Awuah
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Bayode A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Afolalu
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Usama T
authors.initials: UT
authors.lastname: Hussein
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Radu R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Raducu
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Amenuve M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bekui
authors.affiliation: Yale New Haven Hospital , New Haven, CT , USA ; Yale University , New Haven, CT , USA ; Renal Research Institute , New Haven, CT , USA.
authors.forename: Fredric O
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Finkelstein
keywords: chronic kidney disease; end-stage renal disease; hemodialysis; quality of life of dialysis patients; time to recovery from dialysis