Book excerpt: Now fully revised and updated, Dr. Barbara Gladson's Pharmacology for Rehabilitation Professionals, 2nd Edition, remains your best resource for understanding how various drugs affect patients during therapeutic exercise and rehabilitation. Using case studies and engaging activities, it helps you apply essential pharmacology information directly to rehabilitation practice. New chapters, a new reader-friendly design, new artwork, and more enhance the text and bring you up to date with both basic pharmacologic principles as well as the mechanism of action and side effects of drugs commonly seen in rehabilitation practice. - Helps you develop effective exercise programs by providing drug/exercise interactions from a pharmacokinetics perspective. You willl clearly see the implications for exercise for each specific condition and medication. - Presents case studies in every chapter that demonstrate the effects of various drugs on the diagnosis, prognosis, and interventions in physical therapy, so you can more easily monitor patients for adverse drug effects. - Features engaging activities in every chapter, ranging from patient interviews to challenging, real-life questions, helping you retain and apply what you've learned. - Encourages you to use the latest research in your clinical decision making with evidence-based content incorporated throughout. - Simplifies the complex topic of pharmacokinetics so that you will fully understand how it affects your individual patients and your care plans. - Guides you in using the Internet for online drug information with references to specific sites, and when and how to use them to their fullest potential. - Discusses lifespan considerations such as age, physical differences, and obesity, as well as the latest information on diabetes and glucose testing. - A new chapter on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Pharmacology covers popular herbal and alternative products used to promote health, as well as herbal remedies used during menopause and in the treatment of cancer, helping you recognize the impact of herbals on your patients' symptoms and response to therapy. - A new chapter on Drugs Affecting the Integumentary System discusses skin disorders and their pharmacological treatment, prophylactic and debriding agents, antiseptics, and more. - A new chapter on Nutrition and Pharmacology provides current information on vitamins and minerals, enteral and parenteral nutrition, and food and drug interactions -- important topics that affect rehabilitation outcomes. - Updated drug information and new drugs are added throughout the text, keeping you up to date with current pharmacological information as it pertains to rehabilitation.