lesson 1: introduction to medication administration · information and skills about medication and...

Welcome to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW), Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) Medication Administration Course for life sharers. Please adjust your computer’s volume to a comfortable listening level.

This course was developed by the ODP Office of the Medical Director in conjunction with the Lifesharing Coalition and with technical assistance from Community Health Connections, the Western Pennsylvania Healthcare Quality Unit.

This is lesson 1 – Introduction to Medication Administration.

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LESSON 1: Introduction to Medication Administration

Hello, I’m Jill Morrow and I am the Medical Director for the Office of Developmental Programs. I’ll be your presenter for these webcasts.

Licensed lifesharers are required by regulation to learn about medication administration from the individual’s healthcare practitioner. This course is designed to supplement the information provided by the healthcare practitioner and give the lifesharer some basic information and skills about medication and medication administration.

Using this course to learn about medication administration is optional. However, it is recommended because it provides more detail about the basic principles of medication administration. This allows the lifesharer to use the time with the healthcare practitioner to learn about the specifics of the individual’s medication(s).

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Lesson one will introduce you to medication and how to think about medication administration. This lesson talks about what medications are and how they are used. You will also learn about the principles of medication administration so that you can apply these when you are administering medication to someone. In addition, you will learn to identify the different categories of medication and some ways that they are different.

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Taking medication can be an important part of being healthy. For people who need help with their medication, they need to be able to rely on someone who knows how to give them their medication. Giving medication is not hard, but there are some things that you need to know in order to do it safely. You will learn those things in this course.

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There is more to giving medication than just handing someone a pill and having them swallow it. It starts with a visit to your healthcare practitioner. They listen to what you tell them about your health, do an exam, and maybe some tests. This will tell them what condition you have. If it is a condition like high blood pressure that requires medication, then they will give you a prescription for that. But there is more to it than just getting a prescription. This is only part of what we call the Medication Cycle.

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You can see that there are five parts of the medication cycle. We will talk about the parts in the following lesson. All of the parts of the medication cycle are related to one another. They work together to help people take medication and be able to tell whether or not it is doing what it is supposed to do and not doing what it is not supposed to do.

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It is not always easy to remember to take medication. However, it is important to take it or it cannot work. So, there are some strategies that you can learn to remember medication. In addition, it is sometimes easy to mix up what medication is supposed to be taken and

when, especially if you have more than a few to take. You will also learn how to manage multiple medications.

The key is to be aware of what you are doing and to pay attention to the details. Pharmacists write the instructions for medications on the bottles and you can use that to help you give medication in the right manner.

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If you are taking a medication that you don’t take all the time, such as an antibiotic for an infection, you can use a strategy like marking the days that you need to take the medication on a calendar. For medication that you take everyday, try using a visual cue to help you remember to take it. Putting a small plate, cup or bowl beside your place at the table for mealtime or beside your toothbrush can act as a reminder to take medication. Be careful not to leave the pills sitting on the plate so that someone else doesn’t take your medication or knock your pills onto the floor.

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Everyone is familiar with medications. The important thing to remember is that medication is used to treat a physical and/or mental health condition. Sometimes people can see a difference with the medication either by how they feel or if some symptom goes away. However, there are many conditions that don’t give people any symptoms, but still need to be treated with medication. In these situations, it is sometimes difficult for people to understand why they must take medication when they have no symptoms. One example of this is high blood pressure or hypertension. People with high blood pressure look and feel normal. The only way you know they have high blood pressure is by measuring their blood pressure. However, if they don’t treat their high blood pressure, they can get heart or kidney disease.

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Every medication has a good or desired effect. This is what you want the medication to do. For high blood pressure, propranolol will decrease the blood pressure, which is the desired effect. If a person has seizures, then valproic acid may be used to prevent the seizures from happening. What if you have a headache? Do you take aspirin to make it go away? That is a desired effect too.

Take a look at the medications the person you are working with is taking. Think about one of their medications. What medical condition is it treating? What is the desired effect of that medication?

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Medications can be put into different kinds of categories by what they do, like painkillers, or by how they work, like beta blockers (propranolol, described on the previous slide, is a beta blocker). The category that a medication belongs to may determine how you handle that medication. This course will only talk about some categories of medications, including prescription and over‐the‐counter medications, controlled substances, supplements, and brand and generic medications.

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Prescription medications are just what they sound like. They require a prescription or order from the healthcare practitioner to be able to get them. That order then must go to a pharmacist who “fills” it by putting the medication into a container. The pharmacist puts the instructions about how much medication to take on a label and attaches that to the container. Depending on what kind of health insurance a person has, the medication may be paid for by insurance. There may or may not be some portion of the cost that the person must pay. This is called a copay.

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Controlled substances are a kind of prescription medication. These particular medications can cause addiction and so people need to be careful when taking them. It is a good idea to keep them in a safe place and to know how many pills are in the container.

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Over‐the‐counter medications do not require a prescription. However, some insurance plans may pay for them if you have a prescription. These medications have general instructions written on the label. It is important to ask the healthcare practitioner for specific instructions for the person taking the over‐the‐counter medication.

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Supplements, which include herbal remedies, are substances that are considered to be food or dietary supplements and not medications. Even though they are not considered medications, they may have effects on the body or on the way medications work in the body. Some herbal remedies and supplements may have desired effects. They may also affect how other medications work in the body. For example, St. John’s Wort can have a mild anti‐depressant effect, however, it also interferes with the anti‐rejection medication used for people with organ transplants.

In addition, typically these substances have not been proven to do what they say they do. There are no requirements for testing the purity of the herbal remedy or the amount of the substance in the container. Therefore, because the dose can’t be predicted, the effect on the body cannot be predicted.

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What is the difference between brand name medication and generic medication? Brand name medications are typically the original medication made by the first company to invent the medication. When a drug is first made and approved, the brand is the only version of it available. However, after a drug has been used for a while, then other companies are permitted to make their own version of that drug. Those versions are called generics. They are the same active medication, but they may look a little different. Since they contain the same active medication, they have the same effect. They are required to be tested and meet standards for effectiveness. If they don’t meet the required standard of effectiveness, they are not approved. One example of a brand name is Tylenol and its generic (or chemical name) is acetaminophen.

This concludes Lesson 1. Please return to the course and begin Lesson 2.

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lesson 1: introduction to medication administration · information and skills about medication and...

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