Effective Management of Hypertension: Quieting the Silent Killer- 4Hrs

Course overview

Audience: This course is intended for advanced practice nurses who manage patients with hypertension and/or prescribe hypertensive medications. Course overview: This program is intended to provide a hypertension pharmacologic treatment overview. Safe and effective prescribing decisions must be guided by an in-depth understanding of each agent: How it works, how to dose it, anticipated adverse events, drug interactions, etc. When combination drugs are included, there may be as many as 200 different pharmacological options (both individual agents as well as combination products) that are approved by FDA for the treatment of hypertension. As a result, this educational program is designed only to highlight the major categories of therapeutics by identifying key products and characterizing them as a class. In an attempt to provide perspective, an effort was made to provide highlights of clinically meaningful outcomes studies for the various drug classes. Learning objectives • Characterize the different stages of hypertension including prehypertension, Stage 1 and Stage 2. • Distinguish between primary (also known as essential) and secondary hypertension. • Describe two myths associated with the symptoms of hypertension. • Name three factors implicated in the development of hypertension. • Identify three components of the DASH diet. • Name one antihypertensive agent identified by JNC 8 for initial treatment of black hypertensive patients. • List three class side effects associated with the use of beta blockers. • Identify one advantage to using combination drug products to treat hypertension. • Describe one neurologic abnormality potentially associated with a hypertensive emergency.