CHILDREN ARE NOT LITTLE ADULTS: PHARMACOLOGY BASICS - 4 CONTACT HOURS

Course overview

This course provides an overview of children, their growth, development, and how drugs affect their bodies. This course focuses on the four major differences between adults and children. These differences include: behavior, exposure, vulnerability, and physical differences. By understanding these areas, the learner will have a better idea of how drugs and approaches to administer medications differ between children and adults. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: •Associate the appropriate age to each pediatric population. •State at least three reasons why children may be more susceptible to exposures of environmental chemicals. •Name at least two types of air pollutants. •Provide at least one difference between children and adults’ skin that can have an impact on the absorption of harmful chemicals. •Identify at least two of the four basic subgroups described collectively as ADME. •Name at least two of the virtues described in Erikson’s 1959 theory of psychosocial development. Rather than provide a laundry list of facts to be learned through repetitive memorization, this educational program has summarized concepts for nurses to keep in mind when working with pediatric patients. Children are certainly not small adults. Rather they are exposed to a larger burden of toxins than adults and are also more vulnerable to these potentially poisonous substances. To add insult to injury, the systems used to keep our bodies safe are sometimes not fully developed and functional in children. As a result of some of these differences, toxins and drugs are often processed at different rates, sometimes resulting in different concentrations in children than adults. And the immature body can occasionally be more or less sensitive to compounds in the body. The myriad differences necessitate children’s protection from toxins in their environment and sometimes largely different dosing strategies for medications in pediatric patients. Finally, the brain and reasoning skills may mature more slowly in children than in adults. It is incumbent on nurses treating children to appreciate differences between younger and adult patients and develop strategies to provide the best possible nursing care for all of their patients depending on individual needs.