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Polypharmacy Informative Speech

433 Words2 Pages

How does polypharmacy come about? •Unfortunately, as we all age our bodies start to grow old with us. Arthritis kicks in, consitpation, diarrhea, our hearts get worn, our kidneys get tired, we forget important things. In this day and age there seems to be a medication for everything and a commercial for all of them. Our doctors don’t seem hesitant to prescribe a battery of medications for our high blood pressure and cholesterol, for our bloating, and for our digestive issues. Those medications cause your hands to shake and you have dry mouth? Here’s another medication for your side effects. Can’t remember to take all those meds, don’t worry, you’ll get sent home with a giant med box and another medication for memory. Because as we …show more content…

Polypharmacy is characterized by drug duplication, interaction, or both. The good news is, you can prevent it yourself with a little education and preparation. Here are some simple tips for avoiding polypharmacy: 1. Always read labels. They may tip you off to possible drug interactions 2. Use only one pharmacy to fill prescriptions 3. Learn your medications by name and what they are for 4. Make a list of all your medications including pill strength and dose, as well as herbal products, vitamins, supplements, and over-the-counter drugs. Update it after every doctor visit 5. Carry your medications list everywhere. Bring it every doctor visit, along with the pill bottles 6. If you have more than one doctor, make sure each one knows what the other is prescribing 7. Ask your primary caregiver or pharmacist to run your medication list through a drug interactions database to identify possible problems, especially if you’re on five or more drugs 8. Avoid combination products such as cold formulas. Ask your pharmacist to help you find a product just for the symptoms you’re experiencing – not for every possible

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Pharmacists are in a unique position to help. They have the ability and knowledge to implement programs as part of their daily practice to ensure that patients are adherent to their medications. As the medication experts, pharmacists should lead the way to improving medication adherence and providing optimal patient care. The provisions of this bill do not pose a mandate but where appropriate would require the proration of prescriptions, related cost sharing, and dispensing costs in order to conform the patient to one monthly refill that occurs on the same date each month.

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Healthcare professionals must talk to their patients about possible side-effects of drugs they are taking and make sure they understand what can happen. In doing so, patients may start to understand why something is happening to them and it is a normal side-effect, which can not only lead to trust from the patients to providers, but can lead to the passing of knowledge from one to another which may prevent future

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Objective One During my clinical day three, I demonstrated entry-level competence in professional nursing practice in caring for patients with multiple and/or complex unmet human needs. I addressed safety needs, safety in medication administration, effective communication, and surveillance for my patients. First, I addressed safety needs my ensuring the appropriate safety measures were implemented for the patients. Some of the safety measures included, wearing non-skid socks, wearing a yellow armband which indicated fall risk, keeping the bed in lowest position, two side rails up, bed locked, and the call light within reach.

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Micromedex is one of the electronic sources that will help me in prescribing medications. Micromedex medication instructions deliver a single source of evidence- based patient education materials. It provides customized medication information, easily understood by any patient, including indications, contraindications, usage instructions, precautions, interactions, storage, disposal and side effects for both prescription and non prescription drugs. This source provides health care personnel to benefit from the ability to quickly share information directly in the workflow, throughout the continuum of care.

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1259 Words | 6 Pages

Medication errors can be very dangerous for the ones taking the wrong medicines or doses; therefore, safety measures must be in place. Administering them must be done with an understanding and focus. One missed check could have a staff member giving a resident the wrong set of pills. Some interventions to help prevent the medication error from occurring is to first report errors. When errors are reported, the main cause is to try and never let the error occur again.

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When prescribing medication, the conclusion on which medication should ultimately be decided by both the practitioner and the patient. For instance, as discussed above, Xarelto and Warfarin each have their own pros and cons. If a patient would be more compliant using Xarelto, a FNP can look at that patient’s insurance formulary to see if there will be any restrictions in using Xarelto versus Warfarin. Some formularies such as BlueCross BlueShield has Xarelto listed with dispensing limits (BlueCross and BlueShield of Illinois, 2016). Therefore, it is important for the patient to understand that insurance will only cover a certain number of pills.

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945 Words | 4 Pages

Some, if not all, of these effects can be dangerous. Not being able to keep track of your medicine can be detrimental and potentially dangerous. You could not take your medicine or take it twice in one day, which can lead to dangerous physical effects. Safety issues is of huge concern due to the fact that they may be walking somewhere and then suddenly not know where they are or remember what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go. Sometimes, individuals may wander out of their house and end up in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where they are.

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A percentage of the population doesn’t consider prescription drugs very dangerous because they are prescribed by doctors. Unfortunately, that's true and it is very concerning to other people who are aware of the problem. We as a community must help each other and inform each other about the effects prescription drugs have. These types of drugs develop addicts which can be treated effectively depending the type of drug they took. There are two main treatments behavioral treatment and medications.

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While this benefits the Big Pharma industry, it does not always benefit the person. . It changes people's identities, it encourages the use of drugs whose side effects and long-term effects are unknown, and main effects are poorly understood. Reflection

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In pharmacy practice, there are always multiple solutions for a single problem. Practitioner can suggest on the medication and dosage regimen, yet the final decision should lie on the hand of patient. (Robert J.C. et al., 2012) Most of the time, patient does not understand his/her own medical condition and medication plan, let alone making decision on it. Shared decision making, patient activation and broader patient engagement can significantly improve the treatment outcomes.

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Medication use is potentially dangerous. Polypharmacy is increasing, and makes it harder to keep track of side effects and interactions and of potentially inappropriate drug combinations. “The risk of serious consequences, hospitalization, and death due to medication errors increases with patients’ age and number of medications (Scand J Prim Health Care, 2012)”. For example, the GP is supposed to monitor the patient's regular medication, but does not always do so. Lack of monitoring and keeping track of patients’ medication use is a main cause when a patient is given inappropriate drugs.

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1817 Words | 8 Pages

There are drugs to treat a wide spectrum of physical and mental disorders. Many tests have been done to to prove that there are harmful side effects from these drugs but very little has been shown as to what doctors are doing to fix these problems other than treating the immediate side effects. Doctors are aware

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A better way to ask would be, “how are you taking your medications?”, and allowing the patient to explain how in their own terms. After asking this question it would also be a good follow up point to ask what issues they may be having with their medications. In practice we would be able to pull up that patents medication fill history and see how often they are picking up their medications at the right times and we would be able to discuss any further issues with that patient at that

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707 Words | 3 Pages

These examples are not the only ones to show the downsides of modern medication and there are a lot more if you do a little

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Second, another reason of forgetfulness is some kind of “medications” (4), that can affect memory, usually by causing sedation. Also, they can make it difficult to pay close attention to new things. Here are kinds of medications that may lead to forgetfulness: tranquilizers, antidepressants, some blood pressure drugs, antibacterial drugs, which means active against bacteria, and other medications. In conclusion, the aging time is the last period of the human life.

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