[Kidney disease care for the elderly]

Abstract

In our aging population, kidney disease management needs to take into account the frailty of the elderly. Standardized geriatric assessments can be proposed to help clinicians apprehend this dimension in their daily practice. These tools allow to better identify frail patients and offer them more personalized and harmless treatments. This article aims to focus on the kidney diseases commonly observed in elderly patients and analyze their specific nephrogeriatric care modalities. It should be noticed that all known kidney diseases can be also observed in the elderly, most often with a quite similar clinical presentation. This review is thus focused on the diseases most frequently and most specifically observed in elderly patients (except for monoclonal gammopathy associated nephropathies, out of the scope of this work), as well as the peculiarities of old age nephrological care.

Keywords: Aging; Diabetes; Diabète; Fragilité; Frailty; Geriatrics; Gériatrie; Hypertensive nephropathy; Kidney disease; Néphropathie; Néphropathie vasculaire; Vascularites; Vasculitis; Vieillissement.