
Hospital de Manises

The Nephrology Service of the Hospital de Manises has extensive experience on patients with chronic hemodialysis treatment and its complications. Since 2015, different specific exercise programs have been developed for these patients. We have carried out different research projects on this subject. These projects have been developed as randomized clinical trials. Interventions have included home exercise and intradialysis exercise. The intra-dialysis exercise has been applied as combined aerobic exercise plus resistance with bicycles plus weights, and through virtual reality. We are currently developing the third clinical trial in our Hemodialysis Unit with intradialysis exercise using virtual reality. Almost 200 patients have participated in these projects. We have proven positive results with these interventions. Collaboration between physiotherapists, engineers, doctors, and nurses has been necessary and positive. Both patients and healthcare staff are accustomed to the development of such studies in our Hemodialysis Unit.
RESEARCHERS
Alicia García Testal, doctor cum laude from Valencia University, specialized in Nephrology at Hospital La Fe in Valencia. Throughout her career, she has published several national and international publications on research studies, two of which obtained the 1998 Research Award from the Asociación Española de Hipertensión-Liga Española to fight against hypertension and the 2010 Research Prize for the best research work published in scientific journals carried out with Doctors in Training by the Research Commission of the Hospital Nuestra Señora del Prado in Talavera de la Reina. In the care field she has long-standing experience in ACKD patients, with whom she has been working for more than 10 years and oversees the section dedicated to their attendance at the Hospital de Manises.
Dr. Rafael García Maset, the Head of the Nephrology Service of the Hospital de Manises, has ample experience in the haemodialysis field. In collaboration with his medical team, he attends a very large programme with haemodialysis patients. As a more consolidated line, they have implemented intra-dialysis exercise programmes in collaboration with CEU Cardenal Herrera University Physiotherapists. He has also participated with nine clinical trials as a research leader in four of them, and in 12 clinical research trials as the leader in seven of them. He combines his assistance and research activity with his teaching activity as Associate Professor for the Medicine Department at CEU Cardenal Herrera University, as well as an Assistant Associate Professor of Practice for the Facultad de Medicina y Odontología of the Catholic University of Valencia.
In recent years, they have been a leader or collaborating researcher of different research projects, approved by the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of the IISLaFe. The two researchers have recent publications about hemodialysis and exercise: Influence of physical exercise on the dialytic adequacy parameters of patients on haemodialysis. Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis. 2019; 23: 160-166. Intradialytic virtual reality: Increasing physical activity through technology. Seminars in Dialysis. 2019;32: 331-335. Virtual reality exercise intradialysis to improve physical function: A feasibility randomized trial. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2019; 29:89-94 Update on postdialysis rebound using new technology in hemodialysis. Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis.2017; 21: 473-477.