Pharmacology terms

Key Pharmacology Terms

• Absorption: The first stage of pharmacokinetics, where medications enter the body and travel from the administration site into the body's circulation.
• Adverse Effects: Unintended pharmacological effects that occur when a medication is correctly administered.
• Affinity: The strength of binding between a drug and its receptor determines its affinity.
• Agonist: A drug that binds to its receptor and produces its characteristic effect.
• Antagonist: A molecule that prevents the action of other molecules, often by competing for a cellular receptor; it is the opposite of an agonist.
• Bioavailability: The ability of a drug or chemical to be taken up by the body and made available in the tissue where it is needed.
• Blood-Brain Barrier: A nearly impenetrable barrier built from a tightly woven mesh of capillaries that protect the brain from dangerous substances like poisons or viruses.
• Clients: Individual consumers of healthcare services, who can be patients, residents, or tenants.
• Distribution: The second stage of pharmacokinetics, where medication is distributed throughout the body.
• Dose-Response: As the dose of a drug increases, the response should increase, and the slope of the curve is characteristic of the particular drug-receptor interaction.
• Drugs: Medications or other substances that have a physiological effect when introduced into the body.
• Duration: The length of time that a medication is available within the body and producing its desired therapeutic effect.
• Efficacy: The maximum effect a drug is capable of producing.
• Excretion: The final stage of pharmacokinetics, where the body eliminates waste or excess.
• First-Pass Effect: The breakdown of orally administered drugs in the liver and intestines.
• Half-Life: The rate at which 50% of a drug is eliminated from the bloodstream.
• Mechanism of Action: How a medication works at a cellular level within the body.
• Metabolism: The breakdown of a drug molecule via enzymes in the liver (primarily) or intestines (secondarily).
• Onset: When a medication first begins to work and exerts a therapeutic effect.
• Peak: When the maximum concentration of drug is in the body.
• Pharmacodynamics: The study of how drugs act at target sites of action in the body.
• Pharmacogenetics: The study of how people's genes affect their response to medicines.
• Pharmacokinetics: The study of how the body absorbs, distributes, metabolizes, and eliminates drugs.
• Pharmacology: The science dealing with the actions of drugs on the body.
• Pharmacotherapeutics: The clinical purpose or reason for using a medication.
• Potency: The drug dose required to produce a specific intensity of effect.
• Selectivity: How readily the drug targets specific cells to produce an intended therapeutic effect.
• Side Effect: The effect of a drug, other than the desired effect, sometimes in an organ other than the target organ.
• Therapeutic Index: A measurement of the amount of drug that produces a therapeutic effect compared to the amount that produces a toxic effect.
• Therapeutic Window: The dosing window in which the safest and most effective treatment will occur.
• Trough: The trough level of medication indicates the lowest concentration of that medication in a person's body, occurring after the drug has been broken down and metabolized.