DO IT yourself!

Many patients have proven that self cannulation is possible if the vessel is easily accessible. All competent patients should have the right to perform self cannulation in or out of the dialysis center, and everyone of them should be encouraged to do so. 

If a patient is to perform home hemodialysis, they must master this skill of self-cannulation which takes nothing more than learning a few basic principles and applying them properly. 

With the proper training and training aids, almost anyone can learn how to properly cannulate a vascular access. So why are more patients not electing to do home hemodialysis and or in-center self cannulation? The most common reason we found was due to the fear of sticking the needle into their access for the first time.

Oftentimes, the limited training that the patient did receive was far from life-like, such as practicing cannulation on a fake dummy arm positioned on a table. We quickly learned that for a nurse or tech learning cannulation, a training arm was sufficient, as they were performing procedures on someone else and already had a medical background. However, when the tables were turned, and the same cannulators had to self cannulate, the stationary arm did not provide them with the same confidence as the Home Hemodialysis Cannulation Trainer. One issue discovered with the traditional training arms, was the angle of attack.  None of these older training devices let the patient experience how exactly to hold and position the needle  into the proper angle to be able to cannulate and thread the needle into the access. We found some patients were never even exposed to a stationary training arm or they used a pool noodle with a canvas fabric wrapping the tubing. Successful self-cannulation would involve a patient identifying the proper location of the Vascular Access in their upper extremity, followed by proper technique. Cleaning and inserting the Dialysis needle at the  proper angle and securing it into place. We knew there could be a better way to teach patients how to self-cannulate so we created the Home Hemodialysis Cannulation Trainer.