Question

The client has difficulty swallowing and requests the nurse to crush all the medications. the nurse notes a client prescribed an extended-release opioid requests that all medications be crushed to facilitate the administration. what information about this form of opioid presents a problem respecting the client's request?

Answer 1

An extended-release medication is a drug with a different mechanism of release and action. The drug is designed to be released slowly over a course of time. It would not be a problem to crush an immediate-release drug but the nurse should not crush the extended-release opioid. If the patient receives this opioid medication crushed, the entire quantity of the drug will be at once released and active in its body. This could cause overdose or severe side-effects from the high dosage.