AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course of pharmacology is designed to teach the responsible use of drugs as a relevant issue during the professional activity in physiotherapy. In particular, in the choice of the drug to be used, it must consider, beyond symptoms, other patients’ characteristics including, age, gender, concomitant pathologies and therapies, previous history of diseases, etc.

The course is divided in two sections: the first deals with pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics focusing on the evidence that the interaction between drugs and the body can significantly vary according with personal physiological and pathological parameters.

The second part illustrates the main features of the classes of drugs more frequently used in a patient during its rehabilitation (therapy of inflammation, pain, etc).

Finally, the abuse of drugs in sport for doping purposes will also be addressed, focusing on severe side effects (acute and delayed).

TEACHING METHODS

The teaching of pharmacology will be performed by frontal lessons. Powerpoint presentations will be showed for a better comprehension of the topics. PDF files containin the same slides that have been showed in the classroom will available on aulaweb section of unige website.Attendance is mandatory.  In case of meteorologic alert, the lesson will be held on the microsoft team platform.

Students with certified LSD, disability or other special educational needs are encouraged to contact lecturers at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching methods that, while respecting the teaching objectives, take into account individual learning patterns and provide suitable compensatory tools

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

General pharmacology:

• Introduction to pharmacology: definition of drugs, aims of pharmacotherapy.
• Pharmacokinetics (absorbance, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drugs), parameters of pharmacokinetic (bioavailability, distribution volume, clearance and halflife).
• Pharmacodynamics (drug targets, agonism and antagonism, side effects)

Special pharmacology

• Therapy of inflammation (NSAIDs, glucocorticoids)
• Therapy of pain (opioids, adjuvant drugs)
• Local anestetics
• Anticoagulants
• Miorelaxants
• Drug abuse in sport (doping)

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Italian text which is best recommended to integrate the topics that have been addressed in lectures are the following:

"Farmacologia in riabilitazione",

Authors: Panus PC., Katzung B.,  Jobst EE., Tinsley SL., Masters SB., Trevor AJ. 

Editor: edi-ermes

English speaking students will find valuable support in the following book:

"Lippincott's illustrated reviews: Pharmacology", Authors: Michelle A. Clark, Richard Finkel, Jose A. Rey, Karen Whalen. EDS. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Moreover, the slides shown during the frontal lessons will be made available to the students.

2023.aulaweb.unige.it/course/view.php?id=7878

Students with disability and special teaching needs (DSA), are kindly invited to contact teachers to discuss teaching methods adapted to each single need

LESSONS

LESSONS START

The teaching of pharmacology belongs to the first semester of the second year. Lessons will start in the month of october

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will consist of an interview and the score will be used to obtain the average with the other sections of the course. 

Students with documented Specific Learning Disorders (SLD), or with any special needs, will be examined according with the rules that has been certified by University of Genova. In particular, conceptual maps must be approved by the teacher and the  SLD Representative in the Department, one week in advance in advance. 

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The interview will evaluated the ability of the student to place a given pharmacological class within a therapy. He will have to demonstrate the capacity to adjusted the required pharmacotherapy according with the physiological and pathological characteristics of patients.