Pharmaceutical care of the patient with osteoarthritis

Abstract

Currently, there is an increase in the number of over-the-counter drugs around the world. This raises the possibility that the patient engages in self-medication without a doctor's recommendation, tries to deal with the problem by himself and bypasses the doctor and goes to the pharmacy, where it is desirable to receive qualified pharmaceutical help.[1]

Osteoarthritis is a fairly common form of arthritis. It develops slowly in the early stages, does not cause loss of working capacity, affects a large part of the population over the age of 60 and the majority of people over the age of 80.[2.3.4]

Osteoarthritis develops as a result of mechanical disorders of normal joint structures, pathological change of the capsule and cartilage damage.[2,5,6] The main principles of osteoarthritis therapy on the part of the pharmacist are to provide pharmaceutical care, to explain to the patient how to avoid the contributing factors of the disease, to choose the right medical treatment within the scope of his competence and most importantly to participate together with the doctor in prescribing and monitoring the treatment. [7.8]

The purpose of the research was to study the prescriptions of patients with osteoarthritis, since we are dealing with elderly patients, in many cases they also have other chronic diseases, for the treatment of which they take appropriate drugs, in such cases there are frequent cases of polypharmacy, which endangers the patient's health.