With its engaging writing style, clinical precision and currency, and clear focus on understanding drug prototypes, this popular book presents pharmacology in the context of nursing care. The new 5th Edition features a full-color design and full-color illustrations throughout, making it the only full-color comprehensive nursing pharmacology text. It is also the only nursing pharmacology resource at this level that uses large and small print to distinguish need-to-know from nice-to-know content. Emphasizes understanding over memorization by focusing on understanding principles and prototypes. Engaging Special Interest Topics boxes, with such titles as St. John's Wort: Mother Nature's Prozac?, Thalidomide Redeemed - and Strictly Controlled, and Antibiotics in Animal Feed: Hastening Antibiotic Armageddon, help the reader to apply an understanding pharmacology to everyday life. Nursing implications are integrated throughout, and summarized at the end of each chapter in Summary of Major Nursing Implications sections, with patient teaching information highlighted. Introductory units lay the essential foundation for pharmacologic principles. Anatomy and physiology reviews for each major drug family provide essential background for understanding drug prototypes and how they work. Drug content is updated throughout, featuring the very latest FDA approvals and withdrawals, and - equally important - the very latest clinical applications. Includes new chapters on Drugs for the Ear (Chapter 102) and Potential Weapons of Biologic, Radiologic, and Chemical Terrorism (Chapter 106). Incorporates the very latest JNC 7 guidelines on the prevention, detection, evaluation, and treatment of hypertension. Updated and expanded coverage of drugs for Alzheimer's disease and anticancer drugs (hormones, hormone antagonists, biologic response modifiers, and other anticancer drugs) - topics now covered in separate chapters - ensures that the reader has the most up-to-date information in these areas. New and updated Special Interest Topics boxes address current events in pharmacology that have gained attention in the media. Audio clips for the generic names of the 200 most commonly prescribed drugs are included on the EVOLVE site for the book as an Audio Drug Glossary, and pronunciations of these drugs are also included in Appendix B: Pronunciation of Generic Names of the Top 200 Prescribed Drugs in 2002. Herbal Interactions headings highlight the select herbal interactions that have been thoroughly documented by sound clinical research. A new section entitled Drugs for Neurodegenerative Disorders includes the newest information on drugs for Alzheimer's disease.