Young people learn to increase their personal strength to deal with his disease of lifetime.

With this objective, 60 young people with chronic kidney disease from different cities of Spain participated in the meeting of coexistence and organized by ALCER training brings together all young people with the same disease that will accompany them the rest of his life, but each one of these three phases of the same: dialysis, pre-dialysis and transplanted.

young people who one day found in his life with the diagnosis of enfermedad renal crónica (ERC), are people who reduce or lose their self-sufficiency and become dependent on others. This also reduces their self-confidence, not be capable of self-care. The opportunities that his illness denied represents a change of life that often do not just accept, and may develop psychological and social problems.

Empowerment is intended to promote and develop different skills to increase self-sufficiency, with special emphasis on the Elimination of the need for the unit. Expert in techniques of empowerment reinforce the individual’s capacity to make decisions and exercise control over the style of life which marks his illness.

La diálisis peritoneal ejemplifica muy bien el empowerment aplicado a los jóvenes con ERC. Until the arrival of the transplant they have two forms of treatment to remove the toxic substances from your blood. The most traditional is hemodialysis which requires to go to a hospital three days per week, four hours a day, greatly limiting the working and social life of the young. The lack of self-confidence can make you conform ” with this lifestyle. But if the young man discovers through the empowerment you can develop some skills, you can resort to peritoneal dialysis is making himself at home and lets you take a practically normal working life, more time for an almost normal social life and the possibility of travel.

What they learned through the empowerment

Applications of the empowerment to young people with ERC many objectives. The first is to teach them to have its own power of decision, which may then apply to key decisions in his life to allow or not to a family member done them a body in life (there are young people who do not want), have children, knowing the risks that entails or who have already been transplanted several timesdecide whether they want to or not again be transplanted
be able to access the information and have the resources necessary to make a proper decision, is something they learned in this encounter with the image program, aimed at young people informed especially regard to brand name drugs and generic drugsto talk with your doctor about all the questions that currently have patients with respect to possible changes in your medication.

You have a range of options to choose is another of the goals of empowerment with clear application in the case of young people with ERC. The workshop called renal replacement therapy: dialysis and transplant options ” teaches young people to choose the option that best suits the lifestyle that want to carry with your doctor.

Ability to exercise assertiveness in family decision-making. It is another basic principle of empowerment that developed in the workshop family and kidney disease, a necessary binomial ”. In this, they analyzed the repercussion that has your illness throughout the family environment, conditioning a home dialysis, limitations of the mutations of over-protection which sometimes receive these patients by relatives or family leisure activities.

You have a positive thinking and the ability to make changes is one of the primary objectives for those who awaits a lifetime dependent of a disease. In the case of the ERC should work personal strengthening so that you yourself who adapt your disease to your kind of life and non-disease which mark the type of life they develop. In this process, it is essential to develop the ability to change the perceptions through the empowerment. It would be the model of the glass half full or half empty, applied to a disease with many side effects in everyday life.

One of the issues that has more impact on the everyday life of young people with ERC is to improve self image and especially to overcome the stigmatization suffered by others. They are often seen by the rest of the young people and also many older as people who can not lead a normal social life, which for example sometimes conditions unnecessarily their groups of friends.

The image of the chronic renal patient with signals in your body due to the fistula, scars, color of skin, etc, often makes them feel rejected. This is especially frustrating when you start sentimental and sexual, relationship issue that will also have a workshop of this gathering of youth empowerment.