Publications by authors named "L R Welch"
Objectives: Older adults' (ages ≥65) inappropriate over-the-counter medications (OTC) use is prevalent, comprising Drug-Age, Drug-Drug, Drug-Disease, and Drug-Label types. Given that pharmacies sell many OTCs, structurally redesigning pharmacy aisles for improving patient safety (Senior Safe) was conceived to mitigate older adult OTC misuse, using Stop Signs and Behind-the-Counter Signs for high-risk OTCs. This study determined whether Senior Safe reduced high-risk OTCs misuse, while secondarily evaluating misuse changes for all OTCs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Drug-induced atrial fibrillation (AF) is recognized as an important causal association. Lamotrigine (LTG) is a widely prescribed neurological agent with Class IB antiarrhythmic properties at therapeutically relevant concentrations. The United States Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning for a higher risk of LTG proarrhythmic events in patients with structural heart disease (SHD) and/or myocardial ischemia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Health literacy is the ability to access and understand health information, which is crucial for making informed decisions about one’s health.
- The study focused on patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to assess their health literacy levels and how it related to the severity of their condition, utilizing specific questionnaires.
- Findings showed that while patients with more severe COPD felt less confident in managing their health, they reported better skills in evaluating health information, suggesting the need to address health literacy as a key factor in effective self-management.
Article Synopsis
- Older adults (≥65 years) are the biggest users of over-the-counter medications but are at high risk for misuse, leading to potential harmful effects.
- This study recruited 144 older adults from 10 community pharmacies to investigate how they select and plan to use OTC medications when faced with hypothetical symptoms.
- Results showed that 79% of participants exhibited misuse of OTCs, particularly in drug-drug and drug-label categories, with misuse increasing when participants sought to treat worsening symptoms, underlining the urgent need for enhanced OTC safety measures.
Background: Whether lamotrigine (LTG) is associated with ventricular tachycardia (VT) in bipolar disorder (BPD), partial seizures (PSZ) and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTSZ) with and without structural heart disease (SHD) remains controversial. A mechanistic rational for LTG-induced re-entrant cardiac arrhythmias has recently been elucidated, leading to a real-world comparative cohort observational study being warranted.
Methods: A retrospective observational comparative safety study was performed using a large healthcare claims database of adult participants analyzing the one-year cumulative VT.