Simple, one sentence teaching for patients. Cardiac Clinical, Argh!

[simonedbv]

Hello,

If you have a moment to assist me with some simplified patient teaching for common cardiac meds, I would be most thankful. My instructor is big on teaching, but wants it to be concise. Do you guys have any pat phrases you use to explain meds to patients? The caveat is that I can't just say things like "This is to help lower your blood pressure", I have to give a bit more detail.

Meds I am going to give include:

-Beta-Blocker/AB Blockers/Calcium Channel Blockers (lumping these together)

-Ace's and ARBs

-Glycosides (Digoxin and Atropine)

-Sodium Channel Blocker (Amioderone)

Thanks in advance : )

[Kallie3006, ADN]

Do you have to make drug cards? We had to do this for every med the patient was on and it had everything; mechanism of action, common side effects, labs to know before or monitor ect.

Before teaching you have to have a basic understanding of the medication itself so more likely than not our "one line" education would not be useful to you because the majority of the time ours may be "one line" but that "one line" is tailored to that "one patient". Example: one patient may get metoprolol for BP and another patient may take it for heart rate control etc.

If you get your patient information before clinicals look at what's going on for admissions and also what's going on in the patients history. See if you can figure out why this patient is getting this med....

If you make drug cards you can cross reference your premade "one line" education to fit the particular patient.

Micromedex is a good app, does your school have a subscription for this?

I use medscape and drug.com as well. Epocrates used to be good but an update delivered some glitches. Try to look up the meds and find patient education, which will help you education in a patient friendly language.

Hope this helps! Good luck in school!

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

In terms of beta, alpha, and calcium channel blockers, I might say they relax the muscles in the heart and /or blood vessels, so that the heart can slow and fill, and blood can flow through the body. But this can lower the blood pressure because when a hose is bigger, pressure is lower.

ACE-Is and ARBS similarly allow blood vessels to relax and fill, allowing better flow through lungs and kidneys.

Dig helps the heart slow so it can fill, and but also helps it to pump stronger. Hearts that pump too fast, can't fill. If they can't fill, there is nothing to pump.

Amiodorone calms down the electricity that flows through the heart muscle, so that all muscles cells can beat together.