QUESTION
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Pharmacology
The nurse is visiting a 78-year-old client in the home. The client has type 1 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and osteoarthritis in both knees. The client's sight is moderately impaired despite the use of eyeglasses. The client's medication regimen includes Humulin insulin 70/30 (combination insulins) 35 units subcutaneously in the morning, lisinopril (Zestril) 5 mg by mouth daily, and nabumetone (Relafen) 500 mg by mouth twice daily.
What are 2 important medication safety issues the nurse will assess in the client?
What measures can the nurse suggest to the client to ensure accuracy and compliance with the medication regimen?
The client reports feeling "dizzy" at times. How will the nurse evaluate this concern?
**no internet sources**
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| Subject | Nursing | Pages | 3 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Medication Safety Issues
One of the safety issues based on this scenario is the use humulin insulin 70/30 that is taken by the patient to treat diabetes mellitus. One of the common side effects of the drug is hypoglycemia hat is associated with blurred vision. In the event that the patient has issues with vision, continuous use of this drug may worsen the vision of the patient. The second safety issue is the use of nabumetone. While the drug is used to treat arthritis, it has some serious side effects such as swelling of the hands, feet, and ankles (Grande et al., 2020), hence its usage should be highly monitored. The drug can also result in yellow skin, unusual weight, ringing in the years, mild rash, and constipation.
Some of the measures to ensure the accuracy and compliance of the medication regimen include replacing the insulin injection with an insulin pump and use of different sizes of the vial for the two medications. The insulin pump would provide constant delivery of short acting insulin throughout the day (Beck et al., 2017). It would also substitute the need for long acting insulin and replace the need for several everyday injections with a continual insulin infusion. More importantly, the insulin pump would play a great role in improving the patient’s blood sugar level. On the other hand, placing the oral medications in two different sizes of the vial can help in differentiating the medications thus preventing their mixture.
Feeling dizzy is a common side effect common, therefore, the nurse ought to advise the patient to cease standing up after the administration of the drugs. On a similar note, the nurse should consider measuring the patient’s blood pressure to help in determining if the anti-hypertensive drugs may be resulting in the drop in the blood pressure, leading to dizziness.
References
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Beck, R. W., Riddlesworth, T. D., Ruedy, K. J., Kollman, C., Ahmann, A. J., Bergenstal, R. M., ... & McGill, J. B. (2017). Effect of initiating use of an insulin pump in adults with type 1 diabetes using multiple daily insulin injections and continuous glucose monitoring (DIAMOND): a multicentre, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 5(9), 700-708. Grande, F., Ragno, G., Muzzalupo, R., Occhiuzzi, M. A., Mazzotta, E., Luca, M. D., ... & Ioele, G. (2020). Gel Formulation of Nabumetone and a Newly Synthesized Analog: Microemulsion as a Photoprotective Topical Delivery System. Pharmaceutics, 12(5), 423. |