Instructions: Choose 1 paper option. The paper is to be completed before the Final Exam in this course. Each paper is to be 3-5 full pages long, in paragraph form, all double-spaced. Full-sentences are expected, as are opening and closing paragraphs. Be sure to answer the question prompts fully.

Grading information: Each paper is worth 100 points. The paper may be completed any time before the Final Exam. The grading turnaround for papers is one week (that is, you should expect to have a submitted paper graded by one week from the date of submission).

The point distribution for the papers is as follows:

20 points: Writing. Criteria: appropriate grammar, appropriately edited for syntax and phrasing, complete sentences, structured in paragraph and essay form, meets page length requirements. Please use 12-pt font, Times New Roman.

20 points: Follows the prompt: all portions of the paper are complete. Answers fully address the questions in the prompt and address them in a sufficiently detailed way.

20 points: Evidence. In each paper, you are required to support evidence for your written points, whether the evidence is specific detail from the internet, the modules, or your observations (and, in all cases, the evidence needs to be stated in your own words and not plagiarized). These sources should be appropriately cited. For example: (Scott, 2010) or (www.sciencedaily.com, “What is Keeping Your Kids Up At Night,” para. 2). Sufficient referencing and integration (without plagiarism) of other sources is necessary to achieve full points in this area. A reference page is also needed.

20 points: Evaluation. In each paper, you are to include your own thoughts and evaluations, whether it involves thinking about module content and evaluating the meaning, deciding on nature/nurture, or evaluating observations. Your thoughts need to be described in sufficient detail and identified as your thoughts, compared to information that you may obtain elsewhere. Sufficient explanation is necessary to achieve full points in this area.

20: Content. Accuracy of your written positions and appropriateness of content given the question prompts are necessary to achieve full points in this area. This is the heart of the papers—answering the questions correctly, accurately, and appropriately. In the cases of providing your opinions, these should still be grounded correctly in the theory or module topic that you are addressing.

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Paper Option #1 Nature/Nurture
Developmental science focuses on the various contributions to development, and whether they lean toward the genetic side of things (nature) or environmental (nurture). Choose from one of the following topics discussed in the modules:

Child obesity
Eating disorders
Adolescent depression

For this paper, review the module material on your specific topic. Then, write a paper describing in detail the “nature” (primarily genetic, inherited) contributions to this condition as well as the “nurture” contributions. You will need to conduct internet research and cite the sources to obtain additional information on your topic. For example, explaining the inherited reasons for a child to be obese will require that you visit, read, summarize, and cite medical sites on the internet. It is crucial that you rephrase material in your own words and cite it or put phrases from the sources in quotation marks and cite it. No more than a few sentences should be directly quoted, however, in order for you to receive credit for writing this paper (in other words, no credit is given for a paper that is a string of other people’s quotes). As a general rule of thumb, at least 1.5 pages should focus on “Nature” contributions to the issue at hand and at least 1.5 pages should focus on “Nurture” contributions.

Your research must include at least 2 journal articles or books. That is, websites can be very helpful and informative, but your final paper must include full, published research articles or books on the topic. Sources should be reputable and consistent with what you learned in the module as well as other sources. GoogleScholar and PDF articles from the internet can be helpful resources. Make sure you use good search terms when trying to find articles. You may want to start broad (for example, “Bystander effect”) and then narrow to your particular area. This paper requirement means that you need to include at least two primary sources in your paper; articles from the internet can be included, but they would be in addition to the two minimum primary sources. Primary sources are firsthand accounts; thus, they involve the author writing about his or her own work.

Week 1: Basic Pharmacotherapeutic Concepts/Ethical and Legal Aspects of Prescribing

How do beta-blockers work? What exactly do antibiotics do to the bacteria they target? What effects does an anti-depressant have on blood flow?a

Questions like these are related to the underlying pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes of pharmacotherapeutics. As an advanced practice nurse, understanding these fundamental pharmacotherapeutic concepts is important to ensure that the prescription drugs you recommend for your patients will be safe and effective to treat and/or manage their symptoms. Additionally, as the advanced practice nurse, it is your responsibility to ensure that when prescribing prescription drugs, you adhere to the ethical and legal principles set forth for prescribing drugs as an added layer of protection and safety for the patients you will treat.

This week, you will analyze factors that may influence pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics processes of a patient and assess the details of a personalized plan of care that you develop based on influencing factors and patient history. You will also evaluate and analyze ethical and legal implications and practices related to prescribing drugs, including disclosure and nondisclosure, and analyze the process of writing prescriptions to avoid medication errors.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Analyze factors that influence pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes in patients
• Assess patient factors and history to develop personalized plans of care
• Evaluate ethical and legal implications related to prescribing drugs
• Analyze ethical and legal practices of prescribing drugs
• Analyze strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure
• Justify advanced practice nurse strategies to guide prescription drug decision-making
• Analyze the process of writing prescriptions to avoid medication errors

Learning Resources

Required Readings (click to expand/reduce)

 

Required Media (click to expand/reduce)

 

Discussion: Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics

As an advanced practice nurse assisting physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders, it is important to not only understand the impact of disorders on the body, but also the impact of drug treatments on the body. The relationships between drugs and the body can be described by pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

Pharmacokinetics describes what the body does to the drug through absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, whereas pharmacodynamics describes what the drug does to the body.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Ingram Publishing

When selecting drugs and determining dosages for patients, it is essential to consider individual patient factors that might impact the patient’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes. These patient factors include genetics, gender, ethnicity, age, behavior (i.e., diet, nutrition, smoking, alcohol, illicit drug abuse), and/or pathophysiological changes due to disease.

For this Discussion, you reflect on a case from your past clinical experiences and consider how a patient’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes may alter his or her response to a drug.

 

To Prepare

• Review the Resources for this module and consider the principles of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
• Reflect on your experiences, observations, and/or clinical practices from the last 5 years and think about how pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic factors altered his or her anticipated response to a drug.
• Consider factors that might have influenced the patient’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes, such as genetics (including pharmacogenetics), gender, ethnicity, age, behavior, and/or possible pathophysiological changes due to disease.
• Think about a personalized plan of care based on these influencing factors and patient history in your case study.
•  

By Day 3 of Week 1

Post a description of the patient case from your experiences, observations, and/or clinical practice from the last 5 years. Then, describe factors that might have influenced pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes of the patient you identified. Finally, explain details of the personalized plan of care that you would develop based on influencing factors and patient history in your case. Be specific and provide examples.

By Day 6 of Week 1

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses and respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by suggesting additional patient factors that might have interfered with the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes of the patients they described. In addition, suggest how the personalized plan of care might change if the age of the patient were different and/or if the patient had a comorbid condition, such as renal failure, heart failure, or liver failure.

 

Mental Status Examination (MSE) is a critical neurological and psychiatric practice diagnostic tool.

case study

Mr Fred Robinson is a 24-year-old man from Derby (2392 km from Perth) in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. He has a supportive family consisting of his father, mother, three brothers, and friends. Fred is usually presented well. when found, he is dishevelled, unwashed, wearing one shoe, a woollen jumper, beany, and boardshorts.

The police escorted him to the local public hospital after he was observed muttering to himself and pacing near the railing of a bridge next to the railway yard. They found a bag of ripped clothing and papers, a bible, a wallet, and an unlabeled medicine bottle containing numerous coloured tablets near him.

Initially, Fred was uncooperative when questioned by the police, and he accused them of trying to take thoughts from his head. He subsequently became aggressive and displayed violent behaviour by attempting to punch a police officer and shouting at the others. He was restless, overactive, singing loudly, and it was difficult to calm him.

Following scrutiny of his bag, the hospital staff contacted Fred’s parents and informed them of his whereabouts. They reported that Fred had been missing for five days, and they feared for his safety as he recently revealed to them that he had been hearing voices telling him to jump from the bridge that was located near the town.

Following examination by a doctor at the hospital, he was sedated and restrained and referred via the Royal Flying Doctor Service, with a nurse and police escort for admission to a medium-security ward at an ‘approved hospital’ in Perth.

Based on the above case scenario, address the following questions:

An introductory paragraph Presents a brief overview of the main presenting issues outlined in the case scenario. Briefly describe what the psycho-social issues pertaining to this client are that need to be taken into account by the nurses to ensure that Fred receives the most therapeutic care and outcome. In your answer, you need to consider issues of safety, the consumer (Fred) focus, and self-efficacy.

 

MSE: Gather the available information (evidence) from the case scenario, and document the client’s Mental State Examination in the form of progress notes (medical record) under the appropriate MSE headings (Present your information in the MSE format using the provided sequencing).

Explain why the MSE is important in capturing a ‘picture’ of the patient at the time of the assessment. Provide a provisional diagnose(s) that could be made (based on the MSE) as to Fred’s possible presenting condition (s) in the way of a critical discussion.

Risk Assessment: Based on your MSE of Fred’s presentation (in Derby) in the above case scenario, clearly list and briefly describe THREE potential risks (in order of priority) that Fred is likely to pose over the next 24 hours when admitted to the ‘authorized hospital’ in Perth.

Describe Fred’s management plan based on your identified (3) risks within the 24 hours in the approved hospital in Perth.

Conclusion: Effectively and comprehensively summarises main points within the report – highlighting key areas.

Analyze the impact of healthcare technology of it and the advantages and disadvantages of specific technologies, including research studies that present opposing views. Also, identify potential barriers and costs associated with the use of specific technologies and how those technologies are applied to alcoholism.

Cindy lives with her mother and two siblings, 6-year-old Roger, and 12-year-old Betty. Her father died in a car accident a few years ago. Her mother works as a receptionist in a law office. Her family is now at the hospital. Cindy undergoes an open reduction and internal fixation of tibial fracture. She has been in the post-anesthesia unit for approximately 45 minutes. As she arouses from sleep, she begins to moan and call for her mother, “I want my mom! Where is she?”.

Cindy Lizzo is a 10-year-old who was playing at the playground at school and fell from the monkey bars.  She held her left leg and began to scream uncontrollably. EMS and her mother were called. She was taken to the local hospital.

Her vital signs are “HR: 115 beats/minute; T: 37.4 C oral; BP: 122/74 mm Hg; RR: 25 breaths/minute with oxygen saturation of 94% on room air

1. What signs indicate that Cindy may be in pain?

2. What are the effects of hospitalization for Cindy and her family? Consider implementing atraumatic/trauma-informed care.

3. What pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapies would you expect to be used to manage Cindy’s pain? What are the implications of unmanaged pain?

4.As Cindy’s primary nurse what assessments and interv