According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 1960-62 to 2003-04 obesity in U.S. adults has increased dramatically from 13.3% to 33.9%. Now that's a lot of obesity. Here are some thoughts from Sherry Boschert from the Family...
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WHAT'S IN A NAME?
This is a synopsis of an article from the American Medical News.
According to this article there are 3,170 pairs of drug names that look or sound alike and can be confused causing a medication error.
In January 2008, the United States Pharmacopeia reported that there were 30,000 drug-name mistakes that caused harm 1.4% of the time and resulted in seven deaths.
Some of the medications listed with the largest number of look or sound alike names included cefazolin (15), lisinopril (13), enalapril (12), prednisone (12), trazodone (12), metronidazole (11), diazepam (10), levothyroxine (10), and labetalol (10).
One recommendation to protect you from one of these potential errors is to ask your doctor to write on your prescription what you medication is for. This would also benefit patients on multiple medications. Who knows, it could save a life and it might be yours.
By Dr. E. Glynn Taunton on April 27, 2008 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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