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A prescription (Rx) is a health-care program implemented by a physician or other medical practitioner in the form of instructions that govern the plan of care for an individual patient. Prescriptions may include orders to be performed by a patient, caretaker, nurse, pharmacist or other therapist. Commonly, the term pre­scription is used to mean an order to take certain medications.

The word "prescription" comes from the Latinpraescriptus compounded from prae (before) + scribere (to write) = to write before. Historically, a prescription was written before the drug was prepared and administered.

The language of the prescription was unique in Great Britain some half a cen­tury ago when all the names of drugs were latinized. Today all prescriptions are written in English, but you still find contracted Latin words.

A more serious problem is the naming of drugs. Each drug has three names. They are the chemical name, the so-called generic name, and trade name. Most drugs have several trade names because each company gives it a different name.

For example, ampicillin — the generic name of a well-known antibiotic; al-pha-aminobenzyl P — it's chemical name; Omnipen, Penbritin, Polycillin, etc. are its trade names.

It goes without saying that a prescription cannot be written without a very good knowledge of the dose effects of drugs. Each drug has its own dose specifica­tion dependent on pharmacological properties, metabolism of the drug. It should have the following information:

1) Prescriber information (name and address of the physician and his tele-
phone number).

2) Patient information (name, address, age and the date).

3) The symbol "Rx" is a symbol for recipe and it means (in Latin) a command for a patient "take".

4) The body of the prescription provides the names and quantities of the chief ingredients of the prescription. Also in this part of prescription you find the dose and dosage form, such as tablet, suspension, capsule, syrup.

5) The subscription, which gives specific directions for the pharmacist on how to compound the medication.

6) The signature, gives instructions to the patient on how, how much, when, and how long the drug is to be taken. These instructions are preceded by the symbol "S" or "Sig." from the Latin, meaning "mark."

A prescription is a written order for compounding, dispensing, and administer­ing drugs to a specific client or patient and once it is signed by the physician it be­comes a legal document! Prescriptions are required for all medications that require the supervision of a physician, that must be controlled because they are addictive and carry the potential of being abused, and that could cause health threats from side effects if taken incorrectly, for example heart medications (cardiac drugs), insulin, and antibiotics.

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