Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
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Therapeutic Drug Monitoring
Modern medicine has seen significant healthcare developments in research, technology, facilities, drug administration, and monitoring. Therapeutic drug monitoring is a medical procedure of assessing specific treatments at specified intervals to retain a constant concentration in a patient’s bloodstream. The whole process includes vigorous testing that makes sure that the doctor administers drugs that are both safe and effective.
The primary objective of therapeutic drug monitoring is to individualize medicine prescriptions by retaining blood concentrations in a certain therapeutic limit to undergo treatment without harmful side effects. The procedure evaluates different body responses towards medications, depending on age, gender, and previous medical histories such as antiretrovirals and anti-cancer drugs. The outcome measures any unfavorable reactions, healing rates, mortality rates, and ultimately saves on cost and time by reducing hospitalization.
Drug monitoring in the past has helped to determine how age affects drug absorption, metabolization, and excretion. As age increases, it is inevitable that the roles of body tissues and organs progressively decrease regardless of these individuals observing a healthy lifestyle. The consequence of this makes old age the main risk factor for illness and reduced responsiveness to therapeutic interventions even though the majority of treatment is usually for the elderly.
Age affects drug absorption such that there is reduced gastric pH, which impacts how the body dissolves and absorbs drugs. Furthermore, there is a possibility of reducing the quantity of particular cells in the ileum, leading to a significant deficiency in surfaces that absorb drugs and a reduction in intestinal blood flow (Bender, 2017). Ultimately, this leads to a reduction in passive and active diffusion in the elderly.
There is the possibility of aging, resulting in decreased metabolization and excretion regarding the liver and kidney's functioning. There is decreased hepatic blood flow, mass liver reduction, and the number of parenchyma cells, which reduces the metabolic capacity while reduced...