Critically Assess Drug Therapy for Chest Pain

This document discusses the drug therapy for chest pain in a case study of a 61-year-old male. It critically assesses the effectiveness of the medications and provides steps for doctors to manage chest pain.

PHARMACY PRACTICE
AND THERAPEUTICS

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Critically assess the drug therapy................................................................................................3
Steps to be taken by doctor.........................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

MAIN BODY
Case study: The P.D is a 61- year- old Caucasian male. He is a regular smoker. The blood
pressure measured to be SBP 150mmHg and DBP: 100mmHg. The blood glucose level is 7.2
mmol/L and the circumstance of the waist is 95 cm. The P.D tends to suffer the crushing pain
within the chest.
Critically assess the drug therapy
The key medications given to the P.D. is gemfibrozil 600mg bd, atenolol 50mg mane,
glyceryl trinitrate spray 1 spray prn, simvastatin 80mg d and perindopril 4mg od and valsartan
160 mg od. These are considered to be as effective regime which helps in treating the crushing
pain in the chest. Upon the review, the P.D. Has further ceased all other medications except for
the diltiazem and perhexiline 200mg od. However, the drug therapy is considered to be as the
most therapeutic outcome which helps in detecting and effectively preventing the costly set of
medications which eventually leads to adverse set of effects. The drug therapy helps in reviewing
each medicines and helps in improving the health condition of the patient for improving the
health issues.
The drug therapy will help the P.D in effectively relieving the symptoms, reducing risk
associated with the future disease, infection, and helps in protecting specific cells for the better
health results and outcomes. Diltiazem is considered to be as parenteral non- dihydropyrodine
calcium channel blocker (Katritsis and et.al. (2017)). It helps in reducing hypertension and
reduce the crushing pain effects on the body. The key significant side effects associated with the
diltiazem are headache, slow degree of heart rate, weakness, rash, nausea, swelling, dizziness,
etc. Before assessing the diltiazem, it is important to monitor the blood pressure of the P.D
(Steinbach and et.al. (2016)). The patient must take medication on the prescribed time each day.
The diltiazem is the drug which reduces the transmembrane influx of calcium ions into the cell of
the cardiac muscle and also this smooths the musculature of vessels.
Steps to be taken by doctor
The first and foremost step for the doctor is to do the echocardiogram of the patient. This
is majorly essential because of the fact that the patient is suffering from severe chest pain and
this may result in heart attack as well. Thus, the major role of the doctor is to do an
echocardiogram of the patient and this is because of the fact that in this the sound waves is used

to produce the video image of the motion of heart. Thus, this will help the doctor in managing
and analysing the status of the person and the position and the condition of the heart of the
patient. Also, another major thing to be initiated by the doctor was that the they have to
encourage the person to not to smoke and also not to drink (Elliott, 2016). This is majorly
because of the reason that the smoking and drinking have a great impact over the working and
the functioning of the heart of the patient.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Elliott, R. A. (2016). Geriatric medicine and pharmacy practice: a historical perspective. Journal
of Pharmacy Practice and Research. 46(2). 169-177.
Katritsis, D. G and et.al. (2017). Catheter ablation vs. antiarrhythmic drug therapy in patients
with symptomatic atrioventricular nodal re-entrant tachycardia: a randomized, controlled
trial. Europace.19(4). 602-606.
Steinbach, C. and et.al. (2016). Effect of the human therapeutic drug diltiazem on the
haematological parameters, histology and selected enzymatic activities of rainbow trout
Oncorhynchus mykiss. Chemosphere.157. 57-64.