the patient’s pathophysiology.
the patient’s pathophysiology.
Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses and respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days who were assigned a different patient case study, and provide recommendations for alternative drug treatments to address the patient’s pathophysiology. Be specific and provide examples.
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Knowing how to diagnose and treat complex patient illnesses is important to understand as an advanced practice provider. The case study provided this week is about a 66 year old women with a history of MI, HTN, Hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus who presents with sudden onset of diaphoresis, nausea, vomiting, dyspnea, followed by a bandlike upper chest pain that she rates 8/10 and radiates down her left arm. With the health history and her current symptoms, I am immediately worried about another cardiac event for this patient. This patient has many risk factors for cardiac events. Not only does she have previous heart history, she has HTN, Hyperlipidemia and Diabetes, all of which increase her risk for cardiac events significantly. Brewer et al. (2015) state that the number of men and women who are affected by and die from CAD outnumber all other conditions including all forms of cancer in the US. Women present differently when having cardiac events. Brewer et al. (2015), points out that there is significant evidence that adverse outcomes in women with IHD may be fueled by underestimation of cardiovascular disease risk, leading to underdiagnosis and undertreatment.
Due to the acute presentation of this patient, treating her quickly to prevent further heart damage is imperative. An EKG needs to be done within 10 minutes of the patients’ arrival to review for ST elevation and blood sent to lab to evaluate cardiac enzymes. Oxygen would be my first medication intervention. The patient complains of dyspnea and chest pain with radiation on a scale of 8/10. Anytime there is pain we assume there is damage being done to the heart. Oxygen will help with the dyspnea and provide extra oxygen to the tissues in the heart and hopefully prevent damage. ASA 4 chewable 81mg tablets would also need to be administered to this patient. Aspirin suppresses platelet aggregation, producing an immediate antithrombotic effect. It has been identified as causing a substantial reduction in mortality.
