Music Program

Today, 1 in 7 Americans has kidney disease, but most of them are unaware that they have the disease. The US has the highest rate of new cases of kidney failure in the world, and over a third of these cases have never been evaluated by a kidney doctor before this life changing event.

The two most common causes of kidney failure are hypertension (high blood pressure) and diabetes (high blood glucose).

The ACC/AHA Guidelines on hypertension have redefined parameters for high blood pressure (130/80 mmHg). With this new guideline, almost half of Americans are considered to have high blood pressure.

1 in 10 American adults have diabetes, and a quarter of them are not aware of their existing medical condition. one third of US adults have prediabetes.

Why are so many people unaware that they have kidney disease until it’s too late? It’s because kidney disease is silent until the kidneys begin to fail. Even though kidney disease is silent, it doesn’t mean that we should stay silent too.

In the Clinical Music Program, Dr. Niloofar Nobakht and Dr. Anjay Rastogi hope to couple enjoyment and health consciousness into a combined form of disease prevention and delaying disease progression. Together, we can make huge changes in lowering the number of people with kidney disease through simple life choices and health maintenance. In this Program, we educate our community to fight kidney disease with the increasing knowledge of lifestyle modifications, and the supportive mental and physical effects of music needed in patients with chronic kidney disease. With the proper diet, controlled blood pressure and blood glucose, and with the wholesome benefits of music, we can slow the advancement of this silent progressive disease, and we hope to add many more years to our lives without the need of dialysis or kidney transplant.

References: USRDS 2017, CDC 2017, ACC 2017

Learn how you can support the Clinical Music Program by visiting giving.ucla.edu/kidney.

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Program Director