UPDATE
When prescribing medications, what must the psychiatric mental health nurse
practitioner (PMHNP) consider?
The patients:
symptoms
age
physical health
previous response to treatment
lifestyle
What is the priority data used to determine a treatment plan for mental health
disorders?
Patient symptoms
Changes or losses in grey matter can be associated with psychiatric diagnoses
such as?
Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder.
Many psychotropic medications can cause weight gain. True of False.
True, caution is taken when prescribing to obese patients.
Which lifespan group respond differently to drugs than adults, have heightened
drug sensitivity, show greater individual variation, and have increased risk for
adverse drug reactions? Dosage selection can be challenging because their
brains and bodies are still developing.
Pediatric patients
Which lifespan group have several psychotropic drugs that are not safe to use,
certain drugs resulting in birth defects and certain drugs presenting in
breastmilk, affecting the breastfed child, or affecting milk production?
Pregnancy/breastfeeding patients
The physiologic changes associated with aging impact the drug processes of
absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of medications, so lower than
normal dosages may be needed. The most recent Beers Criteria should be
, reviewed to avoid prescribing potentially inappropriate medications to this
lifespan group.
Older adult patients
Brain tissue composed of gray matter includes?
The cerebellum, cerebrum, brain stem, and butterfly-shaped portion of the central spinal
cord.
The gray matter of the brain focuses on?
Psychiatry and neurology and is associated with learning.
Brain tissue composed of white matter includes?
Nerve fibers that connect neurons from different regions into functional circuits.
Why is white matter considered the transit system?
Necessary for electrical impulse transmission. If there are breaks in the system, it can
affect neural communication, affecting behavior. Damage to the myelin can impair
transmission which can impact not only sensory and motor function, but also cognition.
White brain matter is associated with which disease processes?
Autism and vascular dementia.
Frontal Lobe
Associated with movement, intelligence, abstract thinking. the ability to organize,
personality, behavior, and emotional control. Traumatic brain injuries can result in
personality changes, difficulty controlling emotions, and other cognitive functions.
Parietal Lobe
Middle part of the brain
Responsible for proprioception.
Helps a person to identify spatial relationships, interpret pain and touch in the body, and
identify and give meaning to objects.
Damage to the anterior portion of the parietal lobe may cause asterogenesis, the loss of
ability to recognize objects via the sense of touch.
May be experienced post cerebral vascular accidents.
Temporal Lobe
Located on the sides of the brain
Involved in short-term memory, speech, auditory signals, and smell recognition.