How long can a 84 year old person with complete kidney failure live?

Answer 1

This entirely depends on the patient, and what treatment options are available. From what you have said, it sounds like this person may have ESRD (end-stage renal disease). The main treatments for this are dialysis, or transplant. Which treatment option the doctors will choose depends on the general health of the individual, and the relative chance of success.

Unfortunately, it will be very hard for anyone to answer your question given that they do not know the patient or their medical background.

However, I have pulled off some generic statistics for you to take a look at. From my understanding as a medical student, chance of success tends to decrease with age.

Dialysis survival (%)

1 year (2005-2006): 78.7

2 years (2004-2006): 64.3

5 years (2001-2006): 33.1

10 years (1996-2006): 10.3

Patient survival following deceased-donor transplant(%)

1 year (2005-2006): 94.1

2 years (2004-2006): 91.7

5 years (2001-2006): 80.2

10 years (1996-2006): 60.9

Patient survival following living-donor transplant(%)

1 year (2005-2006): 98

2 years (2004-2006): 96.5

5 years (2001-2006): 89.9

10 years (1996-2006): 77.3

I have also found this extract, which outlines the prospect of survival if the patient chooses to have neither a transplant, nor dialysis.

However, when there is kidney failure in elderly, many of them do not want to have dialysis. So, how long can an elderly live without dialysis? Well it all depends on how severe the kidney damage is. If the elderly person is passing fair amount of urine, he can live without dialysis for 2 to 6 weeks. However, if the person is passing little or no urine, then the survival rate decreases dramatically to 10 to 14 days.

Most elderly who do not want dialysis after kidney failure suffer from a lot of side effects, namely nausea, twitching of the muscles and breathlessness. Although the elderly person might experience some pain, it is not a major symptom. If the elderly person wants to die at home, it can be arranged by the family members. There are many hospices who also take on elderly patients who do not want dialysis. Kidney failure in elderly is quite common so many hospitals are also equipped to help those elderly patients who do not want dialysis.

Answer 2

maximum 4 weeks,.