David Wright

David Wright

Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia. Research interests include the management of medicines and their administration to patients with dysphagia

Location University of East Anglia

Activity

  • Thank you

  • David Wright made a comment

    Thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoy it and feel sufficiently inspired by the end to recommend to your colleagues.

  • Yes but not unsurprising. It is often very difficult to run trials of medicines in these groups and therefore they frequently receive medicines which have not been previously tested in them by pharmaceutical companies. Prescribing is based often on experience of others and extrapolating to the patient group.

  • Hi. The simple answer is that we just don't know. It is something which we know little about. I would guess that by adding another solid or liquid to the medicine it may affect the drug's absorption and this could be clinically important to the patient. Therefore if you have no choice but to mix the medicine with a thickener it is important to monitor the...

  • We will be discussing this at later stages in the course.

  • Note to myself to not provide words which you can use to show off to your friends. Pharmacokinetics is the term we use to describe how a drug is handled by the body and covers absorption into the blood stream, distribution around the body, how it is broken down and removed. So quite a small word to cover a lot of things in one go.

  • It is a good point you make. I think that patients often don't think it is important enough to tell their doctor, especially when there are a number of different things going on. I am continually suggesting that the ability to swallow should always be considered when reviewing a patient as you cant assume that the patient will tell you. Thankfully UK...

  • Completely agree. It is a lot more than just not being able to take the medicines. However, because food and drink are so important I think that the medicines often get overlooked. Hopefully the course will help to address this a little bit, at least.