Research issues in Elderly patients: gaps in knowledge and suggested directions.

Abstract

There has been an increase of over 400% in the number of elderly and very elderly patients on dialysis in Australia and New Zealand over the past 2 decades (1). This rapid increase has generated considerable debate resulting in wide variation in attitude towards referral and acceptance of elderly patients for dialysis (2-4). One major reason for this is that there is uncertainty about the outcome from dialysis treatment in this population (5).