Objective Community pharmacists play an important role in providing many essential services to older adult patients. This study aimed to assess participants' awareness and utilization of current services provided by the community pharmacy and to identify preferences for innovative strategies and services related to healthy aging. Design This is community-based research using interviews with older people in community pharmacies. Student pharmacists performed the interviews, asking 11 questions developed by the research team. The interview questions included services currently provided by the community pharmacy to determine patient awareness and use. Setting One-on-one structured interviews with participants 50 years of age and older were conducted at community pharmacies in Arizona. Results A total of 53 older people (54.7% female) participated, with most patients knowledgeable about current pharmacy services and 69.7% using at least one service. When asked if they would participate in innovative services, more than half of those interviewed (56.6%) were interested in medication side effect screening and education, and 54.7% would want to participate in medication review with drug interaction screening. Almost half were interested in lifestyle education for healthy aging in nutrition and physical activities (49.1%) and medication disposal (47.2%). Most participants preferred to communicate in person with their pharmacists, but some showed interest in mobile phone texts and calls. Conclusion Community pharmacies may be a viable setting to provide novel services to promote healthy aging among older people, particularly medication side effect and drug interaction screenings and education.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of death in the United States, with exacerbations significantly contributing to overall morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. The purpose of this review is to discuss the recognition, treatment, and prevention of COPD exacerbations, with an emphasis on the role that pharmacists can have of ensuring appropriate treatment of acute exacerbations and preventing future exacerbations.
This report describes a case of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) and illustrates that pharmacist's role in selecting appropriate treatment. The report discusses CDI risk factors and reviews the guidelines for the pharmacological management of CDI.
Losartan is the only angiotensin II receptor blocker that has shown to significantly lower uric acid levels. The addition of or switch to losartan as an antihypertensive agent for patients with gout is recommended by clinical guidelines because of its benefit as a uricosuric agent.