Fentanyl

arrested and charged with dealing a controlled substance.” quoted in Katie Rogersoug. Health officials say that “public plea could not prevent the heroin on their streets from being cut and sold with a new opioid analog 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 stronger than morphine.” Authorities in Hamilton County , Ohio… received more than 50 heroin overdose calls, reported TV station WCPO.” “Take this as a dire warning to all, if you choose to purchase and use any forms of heroin,”…

Nurses play a major role in preoperative , intra-operative and postoperative pain assessment and management .Pharmacological management is a challenging process to relieve pain. The first choice of drug is a background pain relief, is regular paracetamol, which is safe in the young and in the elderly, is well tolerated, effective in nociceptive and neuropathic pain and available in several dose forms. Regular doses of between 4g daily (four times a day) is recommended for…

Burns are one of the leading cause of medical emergencies in the United States. While young child typically under the age of five years old and adults over the age of sixty-five years old suffer with more burns than any other age group. Children and older adults have a harder time healing from serious burns due to the lack of hydration in the body and the skin is so fragile so burns tend to be deeper. Women usually only account for 31 percent of burn patients while men account for 69 percent.…

Drug overdose is a major public health concern. Among all the drug-related deaths, the opioid class of drug is a significant cause of overdose-related fatalities. According to the World Drug Report (2016), roughly a third to a half of all drug-related deaths are due to overdose, and of those, opioids are the most common substance. Canada has also been ranked as the second largest consumer of prescription opioids in the world with a 203% increase in usage between 2000 and 2010 (International…

Substance Abuse among Nurses and the Effects on Patient Safety Over the last few years, drug dependence has been becoming more and more of an issue. According to Zeigler, Compton and Goldernabum (2011), “a national survey showed that 6.2 million Americans age 12 or older have abused prescription type drug” (p. 13). Drug dependence can range from alcohol dependence to being dependent on the drug heroin. Each has their own issue regarding the type of withdrawal. Unfortunately, drug dependence…

Ohio now ranks second in drug overdose deaths driven by a significant rise in heroin, which has tripled, and fentanyl usage, which has increased 80% since 2014 (The Ohio Council, 2016). Marijuana usage (64.7%), heroin (4.3%), methamphetamine (15.5%), cocaine (22.6%), and other hard drugs (24.5%) by Franklin residents is alarming and surpasses the state rates (City-data…

In adult patients undergoing general anesthesia, does ondansetron decrease postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) compared to general anesthesia without antiemetics? The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of ondansetron, in preventing and treating postoperative nausea and vomiting, under different conditions of general anesthesia. The scope of this study covers the effects of ondansetron administered in combination with general anesthetics and the patient’s response in…

“In 2010, approximately 46 Americans died per day from an overdose involving prescription opioids” (moving beyond) Pharmaceutical opioids addictive properties leave patients needing another script even though their symptoms are gone. Big pharmaceutical companies push these drugs; therefore, doctors feel pressured to over prescribe them. “Millions of people in the United States report nonmedical use of prescription drugs, and recently drug overdoses have surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the…

Cracking Down on Drugs Over 52 million people in America have abused prescription drugs at least once in their lifetime as of 2014 (Volkow). This only makes me wonder—what are the statistics like now, a year later? Prescription drug abuse is the non-medical use or overuse of someone else’s or their own prescribed drug. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) classified prescription drug abuse as a national epidemic. People, often teens, believe prescription drugs are safer than illicit drugs but…

Abstract Dexmedetomidine is widely used for procedural sedation due to its unique combination of sedation, analgesia and anxiolysis with minimal respiratory depression. Transient hypertension has been reported during the use of dexmedetomidine which is usually benign and is taken over by the hypotensive response on continuing the infusion. We report a case of hypertensive crisis following dexmedetomidine infusion used for procedural sedation, necessitating discontinuation of the infusion and…