A prescribed medication is not producing the expected therapeutic effect in an older patient. What should the nurse do first in response to this finding?
1. Document that the patient has not been taking the medication.
2. Discuss changing the medication with the healthcare provider.
3. Ask if the patient has enough money to buy food and medicine.
4. Review the patient's current diet to determine food-drug interactions.
Question 2
A night charge nurse working on a medical surgical unit with older adults just realized that she made a serious medication error. What is her best course of action?
a. monitor the patient and report the error to the physician immediately
b. wait until morning and tell the day charge nurse
c. do not tell anyone, just watch the patient for side effects
d. write an incident report and leave it for the nurse manager to read
Inhalation medication administration. Photograph of a young girl using a metered-dose inhaler.
Leukemia. A blood smear from a patient suffering from leukemia demonstrates the abundance of enlarge
The effectiveness of patient education
Patient Information Supplied When Scheduling Hospital Admissions
Patient Teaching Methods Cont.
Older adults may need special assistance with medications.