Family Medicine And Primary Care
Family Medicine And Primary Care
Case Study
The case study presents Mr. K, a sixty-two-year-old man admitted to an extended-care facility due to his right total knee replacement. He was then released to care for himself at home and prescribed Vicodin for pain management. The prescription of Vicodin read 5mg hydrocodone and 300mg acetaminophen. He should take one to two tablets of Vicodin at an interval of four to six hours. The case study also highlights that the patient complains of pain that he describes as “really roaring” after attending physical therapy. He usually takes the drug at such moments to avoid addiction. In light of this, the paper illuminates the type of pain Mr. K has, how to determine the severity of the pain, the classification of Vicodin, and changes that should be made to make Vicodin more effective in pain management. Also, the paper provides an explanation of what to tell the patient about the risk for addiction and information on the total dose of acetaminophen an individual would take for a day if they were receiving two Vicodin tablets every four hours.Family Medicine And Primary Care
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Mr. K is likely suffering from nociceptive pain. Nociceptive pain is often an acute pain that develops or is triggered in response to a specific situation. It results from tissue injury (St. John Smith, 2017). Some of the nociceptive pains are post-surgical pain, mechanical back pain, or arthritis pain. An instance in which nociceptive pain occurs can be due to a broken ankle or bone that gets better as it heals. Mr. K has had a right total knee replacement and goes for physical therapy to help recover or improve his physical ability. This insinuates that is pain is a post-surgical pain and can often be triggered by the body trying to heal as he goes for physical therapy. To determine the severity of pain, I will use a pain scale. A pain scale is a way of quantifying or rating an individual’s pain. It is based on the self-reported data. The pain has to say how they feel. The pain scale provides a guide in that it provides numerical ratings from zero to ten. Zero symbolizes no pain, one to three signifies mild pain, four to six symbolizes moderate pain, seven to nine suggests severe pain, and ten signifies very severe pain. Therefore, through the pain scale, the patient can suggest a number where the pain falls.Family Medicine And Primary Care
Vicodin comprises acetaminophen and hydrocodone. The hydrocodone component is an opioid making Vicodin a narcotic opioid. The drug is prescribed to treat and manage moderate to severe pain. It treats short-term or acute pain caused by surgery or injury. This makes it ideal for treating Mr. K’s pain. For Vicodin to be more effective in treating the patient’s pain, its doses and administration period should be adjusted. The patient can be prescribed one Vicodin ES® 7.5 mg/300 mg tablet or Vicodin HP® 10 mg/300 mg tablet at an interval of four to six hours as needed for the pain. Taking more tablets or doses can contribute to addiction or misuse of the drug. Therefore, I will tell Mr. K that Vicodin is classified as a Schedule II substance due to the hydrocodone substance. Schedule II substances are drugs with a high potential for addiction, abuse, or misuse, and its use can lead to severe physical or psychological dependence (Downey et al., 2017). Lastly, if a patient takes two Vicodin tablets every four hours, the total acetaminophen dose consumed for the day would be 3600 mg, derived from 300 mg a tablet multiplied by six times a day for two tablets.
References
Downey, E., Pan, W., Harrison, J., Poza-Juncal, E., & Tanabe, P. (2017). Implementation of a Schedule II patient agreement for opioids and stimulants in an adult primary care practice. Journal Of Family Medicine And Primary Care, 6(1), 52. https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.214959
St. John Smith, E. (2017). Advances in understanding nociception and neuropathic pain. Journal Of Neurology, 265(2), 231-238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-017-8641-6
Family Medicine And Primary Care
