Critical Thinking for Exam 2 Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a major concer

Question

Critical Thinking for Exam 2 Antibiotic resistance in bacteria is a major concern in our world today. For this essay question I want you give me a brief explanation of what antibiotic resistance is. Then discuss the risks associated with it, what has caused it, what is being done about it, and any thoughts you may have on what should be done about it. Is there anything in your chosen field that you feel you can do to help? My major is respiratory therapy. one paper and a half will be fine. Thank you

Explanation / Answer

Antibiotic resistance is a well-known concern in medical science. This is a major concern. This has an effect in every field of human life. Antibiotic resistance is simply the failure of a medicine to exerts its effects on an antibiotic, or in simple words, it is the inability of antibiotics to kill designated bacteria.

Mechanism of resistance: Every medicine has a specific mechanism to kill bacteria, some antibiotic attacks bacterial ribosome and halts their protein production needed for bacterial life cycle running. Some antibiotics attack specific enzyme, cell membrane, of bacterial DNA. Due to the abundant use of antibiotics, few bacteria develops/ bypass the mechanism by which an antibiotic exerts its effect by mutation or by acquiring a defense mechanism against the antibiotic molecules. There is either a structural change of medicine binding receptor sites or there may be a production of an enzyme which hydrolyzes the medicine before the medicine can bind to the bacteria.

Risk/Burden

Economical burdens: Due to more and more antibiotic resistance, more and more newer antibiotics are being prescribed by the physicians. As a result, treatment cost is rising both to the individual patient as well as to the government. As well as there are more efforts in research to develop newer medicines to overcome that resistance. These researches need a huge amount of money as well as manpower.

Psychological Burdens: As the newer resistances are becoming more common, patients are becoming psychologically disturbed as they are experiencing treatment failure due to resistance. The high cost of treatment is also causing them to suffer from psychological burdens.

Medical risk: Bacterial resistances are one of the main reason for treatment failure. Whether it is a post-surgical condition or an acute infection, drug resistance can cause fatal results to the patients.

Causes for bacterial resistance: There are mainly two reasons for the development of bacterial resistance. One is attributed to the treating physicians and another is attributed to the patient.

Unnecessary antibiotic use is a common practice for physicians. Whether it is a specialist or a primary care physician, both use an antibiotic. Unnecessary repeated use of antibiotic exposure to the same strain of bacteria helps to develop resistance mechanism in that bacterial strains.

Sometimes patient compliance is responsible for the development of bacterial resistance. SOme patient discontinues antibacterial medication just after his/her condition gets well. This incompletion of medicine cause reduced MAC concentration of that medicine, while some bacteria is still present in his/her blood. This suboptimal drug concentration of medicine does not kill the remaining bacteria, rather help those remaining bacteria to develop a resistance mechanism against that medicine.

The emergence of resistance can easily be prevented by the rational use of antibiotics by the treating physician and by giving proper education to the patient regarding the emergence of resistance.

Yes, there are many things in my field, those can be done to prevent such resistance. Rational antibiotic use, stopping unnecessary antibiotic use, wherever possible, start broad-spectrum antibiotic onl;y after confirmation culture and sensitivity. By maintaining hygiene we can prevent nosocomial infection from one patient to another patient. Isolation of patient who is harvesting resistant bacterial strains from other patients.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse C
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.