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Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Welcome to our Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Each Friday we will post new and relevant information regarding Pharmacogenetics. We hope you will find this useful and pass along to colleagues. If you should have any questions regarding pharmacogenetics, please feel free to reach out to us at PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
Pharmacist and Pharmacogenetics:
Pharmacists understand better then anyone the importance of proper prescribing and the risks involved if a patient is on medications their body doesn’t metabolize properly.
A pharmacist can include pharmacogenetic information in medication therapy management (MTM) programs and areas that commonly use medications affected by pharmacogenetic variations, such as, but not limited to, pain, cardio and psychiatry.
As part of the PGx Medical exclusive program, a pharmacist can identify at-risk patients, work with their physicians to manage test results, and offer ongoing medication therapy management services afterwards. The consultant pharmacist can also decipher pharmacogenetic test results to determine whether patients have the proper enzymes to metabolize their medications. This is especially important in seniors or residents living in long term care communities.
As you get older your muscles tend to decrease in size, fat increases and your metabolism begins to slow down. Age-related changes in the kidneys, liver, and other organs will influence the way many medications work. Aging can also affect the ability of the liver to break down drug compounds (metabolism). The elderly have a decrease in liver blood flow, liver size, and enzyme activity. These changes can affect the ability of the liver to break down drugs so that they are easily eliminated. Due to a decrease in liver function, it may be necessary to reduce the dose of some medications that are metabolized by the liver.
Pharmacists are well positioned to play a major role in implementing pharmacogenetic information
For more information on pharmacogenetics, contact PGx Medical at info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
source: editorsweb.org, ncbi.gov
Pharmacogenetics and Alzheimers
Jim McWhirter talks about how pharmacogenetics can help address key clinical concerns such as falls, dementia, pain, sleep and more. For more information, contact PGx Medical at 405-509-5112 or info@pgxmed.com
Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Welcome to our Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Each Friday we will post new and relevant information regarding Pharmacogenetics. We hope you will find this useful and pass along to colleagues. If you should have any questions regarding pharmacogenetics, please feel free to reach out to us at PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
Pharmacogenetics and depression:
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a condition that affects 10% to 15% of patients during their lifetime and has significant physical, social, and economic consequences. The primary goal for treatment of MDD is to treat the underlying symptoms, restore functioning and prevent recurrence of depressive episodes.
Scientific advancements in pharmacogenetics or “personalized medicine” have provided alternative methods for aligning drugs to each patients unique genetic profile. Pharmacogenomics has been successfully used to optimize selection of medications and dosing, and avoid adverse effects.
Pharmacogenetics may be useful in not only selecting a particular antidepressant for a patient but also in detecting potential adverse effects and reducing premature discontinuations of antidepressants.
Although effective treatment for mood and anxiety disorders have been available for more than 40 years, 30-50% of depressed patients and 25% of patients with anxiety disorder do not respond sufficiently to first-line treatment with antidepressants. Patients who received antidepressants based on genetically-guided interpretive reports provided to prescribers had greater response rates and remission after 8 weeks.
PGx Medical is the trusted and experienced resource for the implementation of pharmacogenetics in the field of aging services. Our team works with physicians, pharmacists and other clinicians across the country educating them on the clinical value of pharmacogenetics for depression and other forms of mood and anxiety disorders.
In the long-term care setting, pharmacogenetics can help with the new 2017 CMS requirements in regards to comprehensive care planning and drug regimen review, including psychotropic and pain management assessments.
For more information on pharmacogenetics, contact PGx Medical at info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
Source: ncbi.com, psychiatriyadvisor.com
Moving Your Elderly Parents Into A Nursing Home
When the time comes to move your elderly parents into a nursing home, what do you look for, or what questions do you ask?
What do you look for when researching a nursing home for your aging parents?
Moving your elderly parents into a nursing home is probably one of the hardest decisions a child will ever have to make. Stella Henry, R.N., author of The Eldercare Handbook and an eldercare specialist who has been featured in Time, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, says many seniors “unrealistically believe they can take care of themselves for the rest of their lives.” And that’s where their children or other family members can be instrumental in identifying the problem and instigating change.
No matter what the age of your parent, Henry and other experts say now is the time to begin communicating about the future. If you open the lines of communication early on, she says, words like “nursing home” lose their sting later on. That’s important, considering that most of Henry’s clients approach her with little communication groundwork laid.
“Ninety-five percent of my clients come to me in crisis situations,” says Henry. The result? Confused elders, disorganized yet well-meaning children, and a family in chaos.
Studies show that nine out of ten parents don’t want to be a burden so they hide things from their adult children. But by talking to them before they reach the stage where they need a nursing home, it might help build their confidence and allow them to be part of the decision.
One question you might ask when looking into Nursing Homes is…how do you manage my parents medications? Nursing homes all over the country are now offering pharmacogenetics at the point of admissions to any resident who has medical necessity. By testing these residents upon admission, they help eliminate falls, adverse drug events, medication errors and more.
Some indicators for testing are:
Depression diagnosis
Dementia
Frequent falls
Increased behaviors
Cognitive Impairment / Delirium
Polypharmacy (9+ meds)
Antipsychotics/antidepressants
Pain Management
Re-hospitalization
Pharmacogenetics is a simple swab of the cheek and is reimbursed by medicare b and in select states, medicaid. For more information on this test, contact: PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
It is never easy to make the decision to move your elderly parent into a nursing home, but making sure they are being cared for and asking all the right questions will help ease your mind.
source: aplaceformom.com
Pharmacogenetics Education: Rethink the Delivery of Medicine
As a healthcare professional In a long-term care community, caring for your residents is what you do. Educating you on tools and resources available to make your job easier and help your residents live a better quality of life…that’s what we do.
Pharmacogenetics is a patient-centered program to help improve the quality of life in seniors across the country
PGx Medical is committed to partnering with communities and physicians in the care of their residents. Through our education program, we work one on one with you and your team to help incorporate pharmacogenetics into your community.
Medicine is changing and the work you do as a healthcare professional has never been so important. With an aging population and staggering healthcare costs, how are we going to be able to afford in dollars and workforce to provide care? It’s never been so important to help move healthcare forward.
Rethink the delivery of medicine.
By implementing programs like pharmacogenetics, your healthcare team will have evidence-based results on each individual patient to help guide you in proper prescribing, eliminating “trial and error” prescribing. Pharmacogenetics impacts quality by addressing key clinical concerns such as falls, dementia, sleep, pain, med management and overall staff efficiencies.
Simple Three-Step Program:
The program is a simple three-step process that will partner providers and communities together to educate, deliver and implement documentable results that will address new regulations.
Benefits of Pharmacogenetic Testing:
- Reduction of medications
- Reduced trial and error
- Less med pass time for nurse
- Overall medication cost reduction
Our program also helps you meet the new 2017 CMS requirements in regards to comprehensive care planning and drug regimen review, including psychotropic and pain management assessments.
To learn more about pharmacogenetic testing or to schedule an educational webinar or a PGx Medical team member to speak to your group or organization, contact us at: info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Welcome to our Friday FOCUS on Pharmacogenetics
Each Friday we will post new and relevant information regarding Pharmacogenetics. We hope you will find this useful and pass along to colleagues. If you should have any questions regarding pharmacogenetics, please feel free to reach out to us at PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
One question we get asked a lot when we travel around the country educating healthcare professionals on pharmacogenetics is…
Who should be tested?
Even though our pharmacogenetic program is a once in a lifetime test and reimbursed by medicare and in some states medicaid…it isn’t for everyone.
If you have a resident at your LTC facility who isn’t taking any medications, there is no need to test that resident. The following are a few reasons why I resident would benefit from pharmacogenetic testing.
- Taking multiple medications. You are having problems that you write-off as side effects from your medication. It may be that your drugs are interacting. How would you know without a pharmacogenetic test? Drug interactions may make your drug less effective, cause unexpected side effects, or increase the action of a particular drug. Some drug interactions can even be harmful to you. The PGx Medical test result highlights potential drug-on-drug reactions so healthcare professionals can dose accordingly.
- You’ve been taking your medication but your condition is not improving. Have you ever heard the phrase, “let’s try it for a few weeks and see if you improve.” That is called trial and error and honestly, how physicians prescribed medicine because they didn’t know the genetic make-up of each patient. Now, pharmacogenetic testing can help guide healthcare professionals in proper prescribing by aligning medications with each person’s unique genetic profile. And the test report will show them more effective options.
- Your physician has prescribed an anticoagulant. The FDA recommends individuals be aware of pharmacogenetics prior to starting certain anticoagulants such as Plavix and Warfarin. Patients who are poor metabolizers of these medications may be at risk – or may not be receiving the full benefit of these drugs.
Pharmacogenetics can help identify genetic markers and can assist in individualization of treatment.
PGx Medical is the trusted and experienced resource for the implementation of pharmacogenetics in the field of aging services. Contact us for more information, or let us know if you would like to be part of a Patient-Centered Care Pharmacogenetic Pilot Program. In conjunction with Dr. Linda Shell, PGx Medical is presently enrolling provider organizations and communities. To see if you qualify, go to: www.pgxmed.com/pilotprogram.
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112