Hyperkalaemia in an elderly patient with chronic heart failure and renal impairment
Write a prescription for hyperkalaemia complicating chronic heart failure and chronic kidney disease and have every line marked: drug choice, dose, route, frequency and duration, checked against the patient's allergies, current medicines, renal function and the interaction database, with each error explained.
hard8 scoring rulesrenal impairment
- Patient
- 74 years, male, 78 kg
- Diagnosis
- Hyperkalaemia complicating chronic heart failure and chronic kidney disease
- Renal function
- eGFR 38 mL/min/1.73m²
- Allergies
- None known
- Current medicines
- ramipril; spironolactone; furosemide; bisoprolol; aspirin
The scenario
A 74-year-old man presents to the emergency department with two days of nausea, weakness and reduced appetite. He has chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and stage 3 chronic kidney disease. On examination, he is alert but drowsy, heart rate is 44 bpm and irregular, blood pressure 118/72 mmHg, respiratory rate 16/min, oxygen saturation 97% on room air, temperature 36.8 °C. He has mild pulmonary oedema at the lung bases and no peripheral oedema. ECG shows sinus bradycardia with short PR interval and tall, peaked T waves in the precordial leads, with a QRS duration of 120 ms. Blood tests: serum potassium 6.3 mmol/L (reference range 3.5-5.0), serum creatinine 1.6 mg/dL, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) 38 mL/min/1.73 m², urea 18 mmol/L, glucose 5.2 mmol/L, bicarbonate 20 mmol/L. His regular medicines include ramipril, spironolactone, furosemide, bisoprolol and aspirin. He has no known drug allergies. You are the on-call doctor. Write the immediate management prescriptions for this patient's hyperkalaemia and state which of his regular medicines should be withheld.
Your task
Current medicines: ramipril 5 mg once daily, spironolactone 25 mg once daily, furosemide 40 mg once daily, bisoprolol 5 mg once daily, aspirin 75 mg once daily. No known drug allergies. He has a history of hypertension and chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. He does not have diabetes mellitus. He has never smoked. He drinks minimal alcohol.
What gets marked
- Whether you chose an indicated drug, and whether you avoided the contraindicated ones.
- Dose, route, frequency and duration against the range for this patient.
- Renal and hepatic dose adjustment where this patient's numbers demand it.
- Allergy cross-reactivity and interactions with the medicines already on the chart.
- The instructions and monitoring you write, not only the drug you pick.
8 scoring rules apply to this scenario. A single critical error fails the attempt whatever the score.
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Taught in
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Educational content for students and clinicians in training. It does not replace professional judgement, local protocols or current prescribing information.