#12 - When a patient failed to respond to prescribed

[Albertlyu]

thanks, I am confused about the way answer choice D was phrased: "the Beverage was not the only cause of the ineffectiveness of the prescribed dosage", which implies that the Beverage is one of the causes, but from the second set of recommendations and results of their application(without knowing the 3rd recommendations or results), we can not know whether or not the beverage is the cause, it could just be the doc has prescribed the wrong drugs. please can anyone help?

thanks very much.

Albert

[Adam Tyson]

That's not borne out by the results, Albert! The medication did prove to be effective after the doctor eliminated the beverage AND doubled the dose. So he was right that the dosage was too low, but the beverage was also causing a problem. Remember, doubling the dose didn't fix the problem, so the dosage alone wasn't the issue. Getting rid of the beverage but keeping the original dose didn't fix the problem either, so the beverage alone was not the problem. Only doing both did the trick, so that indicates that there were two problems that needed to be resolved.

[Albertlyu]

That's not borne out by the results, Albert! The medication did prove to be effective after the doctor eliminated the beverage AND doubled the dose. So he was right that the dosage was too low, but the beverage was also causing a problem. Remember, doubling the dose didn't fix the problem, so the dosage alone wasn't the issue. Getting rid of the beverage but keeping the original dose didn't fix the problem either, so the beverage alone was not the problem. Only doing both did the trick, so that indicates that there were two problems that needed to be resolved.

thanks, Adam for your reply! I think I know where I got wrong: I interpreted the question stem as how the 2nd set of recommendations and results supported the initial hypothesis WITHOUT KNOWING THE FINAL RESULTS, so stopped the beverage and maintained the initial dosage, and nothing happened.

[blaisebayno]

Hi,

Just because the beverage OFTEN interferes with the medication, doesn't mean we should assume that it was doing so for the patient! In fact, the lower dosage's ineffectiveness both in the presence of the beverage and in its absence indicates that the beverage had NO effect on the medication's effectiveness!!! Someone PLEASE help me understand why I am incorrect for choosing C.

[Robert Carroll]

blaisebayno,

It's true that just because the beverage often inhibits the medication's effect doesn't mean it always does, but it actually appears to have done just that in this situation. When the dosage was doubled the first time, the symptoms remained, but when the dosage was doubled AND the patient stopped drinking the beverage, as happened in the last situation, the symptoms disappeared. That indicates pretty strongly that the beverage was inhibiting the effect - double the dosage worked when the patient stopped drinking the beverage and didn't work when they kept drinking the beverage. When I remove a supposed cause and its supposed effect goes away, that's a good indication it really was causing that effect!

Further, answer choice (C) is saying the beverage was responsible, but in your post you think the beverage wasn't responsible. I'm unclear why you picked that answer if it's saying the opposite of what you believed. The second set of recommendations (stop the beverage, but return to the initial dose) indicates the dosage was a contributing factor to ineffectiveness, and certainly doesn't argue in favor of the beverage. As I said, the first and last situations indicate the beverage is a likely partial cause of the ineffectiveness.

Robert Carroll

[lemonade42]

So just to confirm,

When (C) says that "beverage is responsible for the ineffectiveness of the prescribed medication", it is saying that "beverage is the only thing responsible for the ineffectiveness"? And that's why it's wrong, because it's not the only thing that's responsible for the ineffectiveness--- the insufficient dosage was also responsible for the ineffectiveness.
Because I originally thought (C) was suggesting, yes it is responsible, but also left room for other things to be responsible.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi lemonade42!

Yes, your reasoning seems to make sense. As you note, the beverage wasn't the only thing responsible for the ineffectiveness of the prescribed medication, but rather the dosage was also responsible. Answer choice (C) seems close but in the end (D) is the best choice, because (C) doesn't give the whole picture. If (C) instead referred to the beverage being "partially" responsible, that would make it a much stronger answer choice.