Basic Terminology

Question 1

What is a drug?

Answer 1

Any chemical that can affect living processes

Question 2

What is pharmacology?

Answer 2

The study of drugs and their interactions with living systems

Question 3

What is clinical pharmacology?

Answer 3

The study of drugs on humans

Question 4

What is pharmacotherapeutics?

Answer 4

The use of drugs to diagnose, prevent, or treat disease or prevent pregnancy, in short, it’s the medical use of drugs

Question 5

What are the properties of an ideal drug?

Answer 5

Effective, safe, selective, reversible, predictable, easy to administer, free from drug interactions, low in cost, chemically stable

Question 6

Is there such thing as an ideal drug?

Answer 6

NO

Question 7

What is the effectiveness of a drug?

Answer 7

The drug elicits the response for which it is given

Question 8

What is the safety of a drug?

Answer 8

The drug cannot produce harmful effects

Question 9

What is the selectiveness of a drug?

Answer 9

The drug elicits only the response for which it is given (no side effects)

Question 10

What is the therapeutic objective with drug therapy?

Answer 10

Achieving the maximal effect with minimum harm

Question 11

What regulates drugs?

Answer 11

The FDA

Question 12

What is the role of NIOSH?

Answer 12

They identify harmful to handle drugs and provide safe handling guidelines

Question 13

What is the half-life of drugs?

Answer 13

The length of time needed for the drug to decrease by 50%

Question 14

What does the DEA do?

Answer 14

They regulate and monitor the manufacturing and dispensing of controlled substances

Question 15

What is off-label prescribing?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What is a side effect?

Answer 16

A nearly unavoidable secondary drug effect produced at therapeutic dosing

Question 17

What is toxicity?

Answer 17

A degree of detrimental physiologic effects caused by excessive drug dosing

Question 18

What is an allergic reaction?

Answer 18

An immune response that is precipitated from pre-sensitization to a drug

Question 19

What is an idiosyncratic effect?

Answer 19

An uncommon drug response from a genetic predisposition

Question 20

What is the paradoxical effect?

Answer 20

The opposite effect of the one that was intended

Question 21

What is physical dependence?

Answer 21

The body adapts to the drug and needs it to survive, the body will produce abstinence-syndrome if the drug is stopped

Question 22

What is a carcinogenic effect?

Answer 22

The ability for a drug to cause cancer

Question 23

What is a teratogenic effect?

Answer 23

The drug causes birth-defects

Question 24

What is tolerance?

Answer 24

A decreased responsiveness to a drug due to repetitive administration

Question 25

What is pharmacologic tolerance?

Answer 25

An adaptive process that occurs in response to chronic receptor occupation from a drug

Question 26

What is metabolic tolerance?

Answer 26

Tolerance due to accelerated drug metabolism

Question 27

What is tachyphylaxis?

Answer 27

A reduction of drug responsiveness due to repeated dosing over a short amount of time

Question 28

What is bioavailability?

Answer 28

The amount of active drug that reaches the site of action