Patient education on medications

[rich2008]

Some nurses in the LTC facility I visit once a week have asked me a question regarding patient education on prescription medications. In this facility, Speech Language Pathologists do "memory training" with residents. Part of this training is medication education where the speech language pathologist create a list of medications and the reason the resident is taking the med. The nurses feel this is "wrong" as they think the SLP are not educated in all the meds. I dont know if this is true? They feel they are acting "beyond their scope of practice". Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

If it's a really generic reason, like "blood pressure pills," I don't see the harm in it.

[brownbook]

I don't know the legality "scope of practice," answer.

I know SLP's require a Masters and can even get a PhD. Just my gut level answer is they certainly can do this.

My husband has a MSW and LCSW. He worked in various areas of the psychiatric field for 30 years. He knows a lot more about psychiatric drugs than I do and of course when counseling his clients discussed the effects and side effects of the medications they were on. He did work closely with Psychiatrists.

Honestly my pharmacological education in nursing school was weak! I don't know that an average nurse would or could know better? There was even a different post where the diabetic nurse was complaining that she knew more about the new insulin's than some doctors and many of her co-workers.

[Orca, ADN, ASN, RN]

I know of no legal requirements for qualifications to conduct medication education. It might be a good idea to review what is being taught if you have the opportunity, both to see the content and to determine whether it is accurate. You might even suggest that a member of the nursing team assist with that portion of the training.

Anybody with the money can buy a drug book, which contains a lot more information than your SLPs are giving your patients.

[T-Bird78]

If they look at the patient's med list and say "you're taking Coumadin for a blood thinner" then there's nothing wrong with that. They're not getting into specifics and helping the patient be more in control of their care. So many patients, especially eldery, have no clue what they're taking and why so this is actually a good thing.