A patient reports taking attapulgite (Kaopectate) for diarrhea ...

[PhilipSeeMore]

A patient reports taking attapulgite (Kaopectate) for diarrhea over the past 4 days. What is the nurse's best action?
 
  a. Send a stool specimen to the lab for analysis.
  b. Instruct the patient to notify nursing staff about all episodes of diarrhea and save the stool for assessment.
  c. Check the patient's blood pressure and heart rate.
  d. Teach the patient that antidiarrheal drugs should not be taken for more than 2 days unless instructed to by their prescriber.

Question 2

A patient has human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and is taking a cocktail consisting of protease inhibitors, nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and nonnucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors.
 
  Which statement made by the patient indicates that more teaching about the drug therapy is needed? a. Using three drugs at the same time enhances suppression of viral replication.
  b. There is no problem using these drugs during the last trimester of my pregnan-cy.
  c. Because this drug combination kills HIV, I do not need to worry about transmit-ting the virus.
  d. If the virus becomes resistant to this cocktail, another combination of drugs may be required to reduce my viral load.

[karlss]

Answer to Question 1

D
Antidiarrheal drugs should not be taken for more than two days unless instructed by a prescriber. When a patient's diarrhea is not relieved after two days, they should contact his or her prescriber.

Answer to Question 2

C
Protease inhibitors suppress viral replication and release. They do not kill the virus, and currently no therapy for HIV infection kills the virus. The patient needs to understand that even on antire-troviral therapy, the disease can be spread through exchange of body fluids and precautions still must be taken.

[PhilipSeeMore]

Thanks for the timely response, appreciate it

[softEldritch]

Excellent