Medication Mishaps and Body Trauma

 

Photo of medication. Photo from a Wired Article

    There are a lot of mishaps that happen in the hospital with and without our knowledge. A lot of the time medication is incorrectly given to patients or even the wrong one given. While this can be reversed with an opposing medication that reverses the effects of the original incorrectly given medication. Although many of our mistakes can be reversed some cannot and can have lasting effects and have traumatic effects on the body. 

    Anything that causes a bad reaction in the body can cause trauma to the body. In a person with ALS this can have major lasting effects. Any type of traumatic event that occurs to a person with ALS can cause the process of progression of the disease to speed up. This leads to the muscles atrophying at a faster pace and can lead to a faster death. 

    Now this is not the case for an average person, it still can have lasting effects and change how the body functions. 

    There are many medications that are available in the United States, 6,800 prescription medications and countless over-the-counter drugs are available. These medications have many uses, can look alike, and can be mixed up easily if accidentally dropped. This a lot more common than people think and on average 7,000 to 9,000 people die from medication error. 

    There are different types of medication errors for example administering to the wrong patient, or simply incorrect medication administration. 

    There is a theory that these errors are not because of cognitive or medical causes. This stems from there are so many medications and trying to remember what does what or doesn't is a lot for one person. 

    One singular medication doesn't always work the same for one person as it does another. One medication can also be used to treat or help with so many different things. 

    In healthcare there is a lot happening at one time, and that is with just one patient and you can be assigned many patients at one time. So there is a lot of room for error and to add on sleep deprivation from long shifts the medical care team does a great job of taking care of us. 

    A possible solution to this is to communicate better, and to chart what each patient has been given with dosage right after it is given. This will help lead to less overdoses on medication. More charting technology is coming out and is already out such as having a barcode on each medication to make sure the right one is given and the proper dosage.