Basic Terminology Flashcards
What is a drug?
Any chemical that can affect living processes
What is pharmacology?
The study of drugs and their interactions with living systems
What is clinical pharmacology?
The study of drugs on humans
What is pharmacotherapeutics?
The use of drugs to diagnose, prevent, or treat disease or prevent pregnancy, in short, it’s the medical use of drugs
What are the properties of an ideal drug?
Effective, safe, selective, reversible, predictable, easy to administer, free from drug interactions, low in cost, chemically stable
Is there such thing as an ideal drug?
NO
What is the effectiveness of a drug?
The drug elicits the response for which it is given
What is the safety of a drug?
The drug cannot produce harmful effects
What is the selectiveness of a drug?
The drug elicits only the response for which it is given (no side effects)
What is the therapeutic objective with drug therapy?
Achieving the maximal effect with minimum harm
What regulates drugs?
The FDA
What is the role of NIOSH?
They identify harmful to handle drugs and provide safe handling guidelines
What is the half-life of drugs?
The length of time needed for the drug to decrease by 50%
What does the DEA do?
They regulate and monitor the manufacturing and dispensing of controlled substances
What is off-label prescribing?
Prescribing a medication for a use other than it’s approved uses from the FDA. This can only be done with strong evidence based practice, but it can elicit more adverse effects
What is a side effect?
A nearly unavoidable secondary drug effect produced at therapeutic dosing
What is toxicity?
A degree of detrimental physiologic effects caused by excessive drug dosing
What is an allergic reaction?
An immune response that is precipitated from pre-sensitization to a drug
What is an idiosyncratic effect?
An uncommon drug response from a genetic predisposition
What is the paradoxical effect?
The opposite effect of the one that was intended
What is physical dependence?
The body adapts to the drug and needs it to survive, the body will produce abstinence-syndrome if the drug is stopped
What is a carcinogenic effect?
The ability for a drug to cause cancer
What is a teratogenic effect?
The drug causes birth-defects
What is tolerance?
A decreased responsiveness to a drug due to repetitive administration
What is pharmacologic tolerance?
An adaptive process that occurs in response to chronic receptor occupation from a drug
What is metabolic tolerance?
Tolerance due to accelerated drug metabolism
What is tachyphylaxis?
A reduction of drug responsiveness due to repeated dosing over a short amount of time
What is bioavailability?
The amount of active drug that reaches the site of action
