Rehabilitation Pharmacology: Impact on Central Nervous System - SOD

Course overview

Each patient that a rehabilitation professional treats is on at least one medication, and more often than not the list of medications is rather extensive. While medications are prescribed and managed by physicians and pharmacists, medications have significant implications that impact the rehabilitative process, therefore, pharmacology knowledge is essential for rehabilitation professionals. Each rehab professional should have a baseline understanding of the classes of drugs that are most commonly prescribed to adult patients, as well as their side effects and what impact they have on the rehabilitative process. This course will review the classes of drugs that are used to manage central nervous system diagnoses. The drugs discussed in this course include antianxiety drugs, antidepressants, antipsychotics, antiepileptics, Parkinson Disease drugs, anesthetics, and muscle relaxants. The emphasis is not on learning or memorizing drug names, rather the emphasis of this course will be to gain an understanding of each of the classes of drugs mentioned above. This includes a basic understanding of how the drug class works, and a more detailed understanding of the side effects and rehab implications of each drug class. In addition to lecture, case studies will be utilized to enhance the learning of the rehab professional.