Biology Report: Analyzing Quality Use of Medication in a Patient Case

This biology report presents a case study of a 79-year-old patient suffering from multiple comorbidities and prescribed numerous medications. The report critically analyzes the quality use of medication (QUM) in this context, highlighting the challenges of polypharmacy and the importance of medication adherence. It discusses the factors influencing QUM, including the patient's age, clinical conditions, and the potential for alternative interventions. The report identifies two major issues: the high number of medications and the absence of alternative strategies. The report recommends decreasing the number of medications, considering pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic interactions, and using strategies such as setting reminders. Additionally, it suggests the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address cognitive and memory issues, as well as memory tracking exercises to improve medication adherence. The report emphasizes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and the need to address both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of treatment to improve patient outcomes.

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It is to be understood the various diseases that the subject suffers from in this case are
very critical and it is important that the different aspects of the different mental health that
has been affected from the perspective of subject is very much related to her health as well as
age conditions (Gray et al., 2018). The patient is 79 years old and it is very critical to the
understood that the forgetfulness along with various issues related to cognition, awareness,
self-concept, memory and retrieval would play a huge role in the presentation of the
symptoms. The subject is suffering from congestive heart failure, hypertension, arthritis, and
hyperlipidemia and these are all very related to each other in the sense that relate to another is
a clinical context and it is to be noted very pertinently that the subject has a
history of three myocardial infarctions (which has occurred in the eight, five, and two years
in respective order) which has made the clinical scenario around the subject a more issue. the
patient has pneumonia and the subject has shown symptoms of the gastro esophageal reflux
disease. Hence, she has been prescribed a lot of drugs as in medication for each of the cases
that has been elucidated above and it is very crucial that the subject takes all the medications
as prescribed by the clinicians in a very imperative manner and this is very critical that the
various aspects of the medication adherence behavior is followed by the patient in order of
keep up with the parameter which is of immense clinical importance – that is QUM which is
otherwise also known as the quality use of medications in a very useful manner. The patient
is on Digoxin 62.5mcg daily, Bisoprolol 5mg twice daily, Aspirin 325mg mane,
Warfarin 3mg daily, Omeprazole 20mg daily, Lisinopril 10mg daily,
Furosemide 40mg mane, Potassium chloride 20mEq twice daily, Paracetamol 650mg twice
daily, Atorvastatin 20mg daily and others – which makes the quality use of medicines
scenario or question in context to the case scenario even a more complex one. The two major
aspects under which the QUM or the quality use of medicine is applied is that there is a
certain position of each of the drugs in a certain case management scenario and the quality

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use of medicine parameter also uses the awareness to the fact whether there are certain
alternate interventions other pharmacological management that can be used for better
prognosis and recovery of the patient in a case or scenario.
In this case, it is very clear that the subject is overburden with the number of
or rattler multiple number of medications and that too when the subject is 79 years old and
leaves alone without any much support other than the assistance exte4nded by her daughter at
times – this leads to the first big issue with QUM or quality use of medicine practice in the
perspective of the case study. It is to be noted significantly that the various factors that the
QUM or quality use of medicine practice framework uses is that there are certain factors on
which the quantity and quality of the medication delivered, depends. At first, is the individual
who is suffering from the issue, followed by clinical disorder that the person is facing and the
various benefits and risks that are associated pertinently to the clinical problem and the age of
the patient (Tan et al., 2017). The next is duration as well as dosage of medicines used in the
stages of the treatment and if there is any co-morbidity condition is present and the
application of other therapies. The different monitoring considerations as well as the cost
effectiveness with respect to the society, community or the individuals in national context as
a whole are the other very important aspects and perspectives that has been reported by
various other researchers to be important in understanding of the quality use of medicine
perspective (Santo et al., 2016).. In this case study, another huge drawback with the quality
use of medication is that the subject has only been given medications for each of conditions
that she is suffering from and any sort of alternate strategies such as alternate allied health
interventions are used in reference to the health care scenario, are missing from the
management of the subject in the case study.
For the first issue, the recommended strategy is to decrease the number of the
medications firstly and then add to the qualitative part of the treatment rather than the

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quantitative part of the treatment and this means, the clinicians who has worked as a part of
the multidisciplinary team should consider the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of
each drug in the perspective of the other drug and then the outcomes o each drug in
opposition to the other drugs has to be used and analysed in a very pertinent manner, of
course (Queiroz et al., 2019). The second recommended strategy is to use the various types of
the medications in a very controlled manner so as to calculate the dose as per the age and the
dose must be so minutely calculated beforehand that the various aspects of the different side
effects are reduced. The second recommendation that has been used or applied to solve the
first issue can added with ‘setting reminders’ in order to solve and address the medicinal
intake, on a timely basis issue. Thus, using a very plastic container with the name and
purpose of the drug written in simple language – is likely to help the subject with the
medication adherence process. As the patient has issues with remembering the name of the
drugs and thus again, the patient who has reported in the case study to be very much on the
sedatives and this has added to the cognition, memory and remembrance issue and by the
supplication of the first two recommendations for the first issue – the issues in the subject can
be actually solved. The idea is to develop the right interventions and the right strategies that
would help the subject understand the function of the drug she is taking and the name of drug
will be better remembered in this manner. Secondly, lessening the number of drugs would
decrease the changes of drug intolerance and drug reactions which are considered to be as
adverse. For the second issue, that is the lack of alternate strategies such as alternate allied
health interventions are used in reference to the health care scenario, which are completely
missing from the management of the subject in the case study can addressed with the
cognitive behavioural therapy that can be used as first line of intervention against the
cognition and memory issues and as cognitive behavioural therapy is used very pertinent
across the patient of all age in order to straighten their cognitive patterns towards more safe

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medication use behaviours pertaining to the use of the quality use of medication in a clinical
scenario. CBT which is also otherwise known as cognitive behavioural therapy can be used to
direct and redirect thre behaviours and attitudes of the subject such as the one in this case
study – towards a more pertinent and more correct medication adherence behaviour. Other
than that, the added advantage is the fact that the use of CBT which is also otherwise known
as cognitive behavioural therapy would address the mental health issues such as anxiety and
isolation issues in the subject as well and attribute to the reduction of drug use. The second
recommendation to the second issue is the use of memory tracking exercises to solve the
memory problems in the subject and increase quality use of drug methods.

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References
Gray, S. L., Marcum, Z. A., Schmader, K. E., & Hanlon, J. T. (2018). Update on medication
use quality and safety in older adults, 2017. Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society, 66(12), 2254-2258.
Queiroz, D. C., Turi, B. C., Sarti, F. M., Dos, I. S. F., & Sanches, J. C. (2019). Association
between quality of life, physical activity, use of medication and costs of treatment for
chronic diseases in primary care. The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness.
Santo, K., Richtering, S. S., Chalmers, J., Thiagalingam, A., Chow, C. K., & Redfern, J.
(2016). Mobile phone apps to improve medication adherence: a systematic stepwise
process to identify high-quality apps. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 4(4), e132.
Tan, C. S., Hassali, M. A., Neoh, C. F., & Saleem, F. (2017). A qualitative exploration of
hypertensive patients’ perception towards quality use of medication and hypertension
management at the community level. Pharmacy Practice (Granada), 15(4).