Our Recap of the European Renal Association Congress 2023
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Part of the team had the opportunity to present our work internationally in June as they attended the European Renal Association 60th Congress in Milan. This was a fantastic opportunity to network with kidney professionals from around the world and share our work, here is a recap of the work presented over the conference:
Roseanne Billany presented two focused orals on her PhD (the ECSERT trial) sharing promising initial results of the effects of a home-based exercise programme on cardiorespiratory fitness in kidney transplant recipients, and the feasibility of the intervention.
Roseanne also presented work on behalf of our PhD student Noemi Vadaszy looking at associations between sarcopenia, cardiovascular health and habitual physical activity in patients on haemodialysis, suggesting exercise should be continued to be promoted to all patients and sarcopenia does not limit the benefits.
Gurneet Sohansoha showcased an electronic poster on the effects of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout on feelings of safety and perceived change in social behaviour, suggesting limited changes to behaviour and high perceived safety. Gurneet also delivered a focused oral on the lessons learnt from virtual recruitment to the multicentre randomised controlled trial (SMILE-K), proposing inviting prospective participants by mailing them after discussing in a remote appointment gained the best consent rate.
Naeema Patel presented two focused orals. The first explored the mental health of people with kidney disease and their significant others before and after the COVID-19 vaccine programme. She also presented initial results from her PhD DELPHI study identifying priority outcomes for education and self-management in non-dialysis chronic kidney disease, suggesting clinical outcomes to be the top priority across groups.
Courtney Lightfoot delivered a focused oral evaluating patient activation status and perceived function impairment in CKD and its association with optimising life participation through enhanced self-management.
The team attended a variety of other presentations throughout the conference. They especially enjoyed the symposium about ‘getting the patient voice heard’ chaired by Daniel Gallego & Juan Carlos Julián, Martin Wilkie’s presentation highlighting the important work by the SONG-CKD initiative, and GREx colleague Diogo Vaz Leal’s presentation on physical activity and physical function in kidney disease.
