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Hi.
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Welcome to our video on pharmacodynamics.
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Now, you might be asking yourself,
“Why in the world do I need to know
about pharmacodynamics?”
Well, it’s actually a really cool
part of pharmacology.
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So, let’s walk through how this
is going to benefit you
as a practicing nurse to understand
these really important concepts.
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Okay, so if you understand how
pharmacodynamics work,
remember we’ve discussed pharmacokinetics,
that’s how the body moves the
drug all the way through.
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Pharmacodynamics is how the
drug impacts the body,
so it’s really important that
nurses understand that
plus all the individual patient variations.
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Okay, so when you understand
pharmacodynamics,
you can advocate effectively and that
is your main role at the bedside.
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Our job is to advocate for the patients:
to make sure they get the right medications,
they get them safely,
and they’re effectively doing what the
healthcare provider wants them to do.
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It helps you make safe decisions
about your medication.
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If I’m taking a medication, I want to make
sure it’s the safest choice for me
and I want the same thing for my patients,
and I know that you will too.
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Now, in order for me to
assess the medication,
I need to share all that information
with the patient
and what they need to know
to be safe at home too.
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So, I’ll use it to help educate the patients
about their medications.
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So, it’s all about me being
a safe practitioner
and helping the patient carry that same
safe practice into their home setting.
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So, let’s start with some basic
pharmacodynamic terms.
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Now, the first one is a tongue twister,
so I’m going to say it very slowly—
maximal efficacy—there, I did it.
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Now, let’s talk about what it is.
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It’s the biggest effect a drug
can have on the body.
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That is much easier to say
and to understand.
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So, we’re looking for a big effect of a drug
that’ll have on the body. Remember,
pharmacodynamics
is the effect of the drug on the body.
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Now, potent drug, that’s easier to say,
but we’re talking if it’s a potent drug
that means that it produces an effect
at a relatively lower dosage.
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Let me give you an example.
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Morphine is a drug that
we use for pain control.
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Most everybody is familiar
with what that name is,
but fentanyl
also is used for pain control and
it’s a much more potent drug,
100 times more potent.
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So, that’s what we mean when
we talk about a drug’s potency.
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There may be 2 drugs that do similar things
but 1 is much stronger or potent.
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The next term is receptor binding.
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We’ll talk more about receptors as
we move through this presentation,
but we just want to introduce
you to the concept
that receptors are special proteins
that other substance bind to.
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Now the last term on this slide is affinity,
and that’s just the strength
of the attraction.
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Once the molecules are bound together,
how strong is that bond?
Okay, so those are just 4 basic terms
that you should understand in the
beginning of pharmacodynamics.