drugs and medicines

• Medications


  Drugs used in medicine
• The NHS spends over seventeen billion pounds a year on medications
• Types of medications


  • Those that relieve the symptoms of diseases
  • Those that help treat the disease
• Medications that relieve symptoms


  They don't actually help cure the problem, they just reduce the symptoms
• Medications that help treat the disease

  • Antibiotics
• Antibiotics


  They can directly kill bacteria or prevent the growth of new bacteria
• Antibiotics don't work on viruses
• Antibiotics are made specifically to interfere with bacteria

  They can't do anything to viruses
• Viruses hide within our body's cells


  It's almost impossible to destroy them without destroying our own cells
• There are loads of different antibiotics and each one can only kill certain types of bacteria
• Doctors might have to do a test to find out which type of bacteria you have before prescribing an antibiotic
• Antibiotic resistance is where bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, meaning we can't use the same antibiotics to treat them anymore
• Our ability to treat both the symptoms of a disease and the disease itself has revolutionized medicine, both in terms of improving people's quality of life and extending their lives
• Loads of people are now being treated with multiple drugs at once, with some making them feel better while other drugs help to fix the root causes of their diseases