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Article: Use of anxiolytics and hypnotic drugs.
- Article from:
- Nursing Homes
- Article date:
- July 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Vendome Group LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Toward a more cautious approach, as per OBRA
All drugs prescribed for the nursing home patient may be considered to be psychoactive, in that they may affect the central nervous system (CNS) (Table 1). Nurses may ascribe most of these CNS effects to underlying disease processes rather than to these medications. That is why one of the most important assessments to be made by the charge nurse, with the consultant pharmacist's input, is whether a drug effect is involved. The question is, "How did this medicine affect the patient within the first several days to weeks after the drug was started?"
For example, the nursing home patient with dementia may reverse his ...