Hydralazine (Apresoline) Nursing Considerations

Hey guys, let’s talk about hydralazine also known as a pre. This is an oral medication, as you can see here with this packaging, but it also comes in other forms like IV. Okay. Remember when we about the therapeutic class, we’re talking about how the drug works in the body while the pharmacologic class is the chemical effect of the drug. So hydralazine is an anti hypertensive while it’s pharmacologic class is a vasodilator. So the action of hydralazine is it promote arterial, vasodilation, following smooth muscle relaxation, which is why we use it for the treatment of hypertension. So be aware that there are some side effects that come along with hydralazine. These can include angina, tachycardia and even arrhythmias. 

So let’s take a look at a few nursing considerations for hydralazine. Of course, you will want to monitor your patients blood pressure while on therapy, to be sure the treatment and dose are appropriate and are in fact working for your patients, know that hydralazine may cause some sodium retention in your patient use caution in patients who are also on mais and finally teach your patient how to take their own blood pressure, even if it’s at the local pharmacy or with an at home monitor. So here’s an interesting thing about hydralazine. So in combination with ISOR, I nitrates this combination is used for the treatment of CHF and was actually the first drug combination that was approved on the basis of race, as it has shown to be super successful in black patients. That’s it for hydralazine or pres now go out and be your best self today and as always happy nursing.