Assignment: Prescribing for Older Adults and Pregnant Women

Prescribing for Older Adults and Pregnant Women
The selected disorder for analysis in this paper is major depression among the elderly adults. Major depression is a common disorder diagnosed among the elderly patients. Patients experience symptoms such as having persistently depressed mood, suicidal thoughts, attempts, plans, and changes in their sleep cycles and appetite among others. One of the recommended FDA-approved drug for treating major depression among the elderly patients is citalopram. Doxepin is an example of off-label drug used in treating major depression among elderly adults. An example of a non-pharmacological approach that can be utilized to treat this disorder among the elderly adults is cognitive behavioral therapy (Robertson et al., 2019).

ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Good News For Our New customers . We can write this assignment for you and pay after Delivery. Our Top -rated medical writers will comprehensively review instructions , synthesis external evidence sources(Scholarly) and customize a quality assignment for you. We will also attach a copy of plagiarism report alongside and AI report. Feel free to chat Us

An example of risk assessment tool that I would use to inform my treatment decision making with an elderly adult with major depression is Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). BDI is a tool that enables psychiatric practitioners to determine the severity of major depression symptoms. The tool has self-reported questions that enable the provider to score the severity of symptoms and guide the treatment decisions (Agüera-Ortiz et al., 2020). The benefits of using FDA-approved medicine include the high safety, efficacy, and efficiency levels in treating major depression. The medicine minimizes the risk of patient harm in the treatment process (Gutsmiedl et al., 2020; Robertson et al., 2019). The risk of using FDA-approved drugs is that some patients may not respond to them as expected increasing the need for off-label drugs.
The risks of using off-label drugs include the potential of patient harm due to the lack of adequate evidence on their efficacy and safety level. Off-label medications also act as a great source of threat to vulnerable populations since they have limited safety indexes. The benefit of off-label drugs is that they can be used to treat conditions in cases where FDA-approved drugs do not exist (Paiva et al., 2023). Clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of major depression among elderly adults exist. For example, Association (2019) recommends the use of antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for treating major depression in elderly adults. It also recommends risk assessment-based approach to determine symptom severity and appropriate interventions.

References
Association, A. P. (2019). Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of depression across three age cohorts.
Agüera-Ortiz, L., Claver-Martín, M. D., Franco-Fernández, M. D., López-Álvarez, J., Martín-Carrasco, M., Ramos-García, M. I., & Sánchez-Pérez, M. (2020). Depression in the Elderly. Consensus Statement of the Spanish Psychogeriatric Association. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00380
Gutsmiedl, K., Krause, M., Bighelli, I., Schneider-Thoma, J., & Leucht, S. (2020). How well do elderly patients with major depressive disorder respond to antidepressants: A systematic review and single-group meta-analysis. BMC Psychiatry, 20(1), 102. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-020-02514-2
Paiva, T. C., Soares, L., & Faria, A. L. (2023). Depression in Elderly People. Encyclopedia, 3(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia3020048
Robertson, L., Bertolini, F., Meader, N., Davies, S. J., Barbui, C., Gilbody, S., & Churchill, R. (2019). Antidepressants for major depression disorder in older people: A network meta‐analysis. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2019(9), CD013394. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD013394

ORDER A CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Prescribing for Older Adults and Pregnant Women

After assessing and diagnosing a patient, PMHNPs must take into consideration special characteristics of the patient before determining an appropriate course of treatment. For pharmacological treatments that are not FDA-approved for a particular use or population, off-label use may be considered when the potential benefits could outweigh the risks.

In this Discussion, you will investigate a specific disorder and determine potential appropriate treatments for when it occurs in an older adult or pregnant woman.

Resources

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.

Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

To Prepare:

Choose one of the two following specific populations: either pregnant women or older adults. Then, select a specific disorder from the DSM-5-TR to use.

Use the Walden Library to research evidence-based treatments for your selected disorder in your selected population (either older adults or pregnant women). You will need to recommend one FDA-approved drug, one non-FDA-approved “off-label” drug, and one nonpharmacological intervention for treating the disorder in that population.

By Day 3 of Week 9

Recommend one FDA-approved drug, one off-label drug, and one nonpharmacological intervention for treating your chosen disorder in older adults or pregnant women.

Explain the risk assessment you would use to inform your treatment decision making. What are the risks and benefits of the FDA-approved medicine? What are the risks and benefits of the off-label drug?

Explain whether clinical practice guidelines exist for this disorder, and if so, use them to justify your recommendations. If not, explain what information you would need to take into consideration.

Support your reasoning with at least three current, credible scholarly resources, one each on the FDA-approved drug, the off-label, and a nonpharmacological intervention for the disorder.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6 of Week 9

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on 2 different days who selected different disorders. Propose an alternative on-label, off-label, or nonpharmacological treatment for the disorders. Justify your suggestions with at least two references to the literature.

Note: For this Discussion, you are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleagues’ postings. Begin by clicking on the Reply button to complete your initial post. Remember, once you click on Post Reply, you cannot delete or edit your own posts and you cannot post anonymously. Please check your post carefully before clicking on Post Reply!

Search entries or author Filter replies by unread Unread