Atropine drops are often used sublingually in patients that are very close to death to help alleviate oral secretions.
You can use eye drops under your tongue, but they would not have any positive effects.
atropine
Atropine is a cholinergic antagonist which blocks the acetylcholine receptor causing increased sympathetic tone increasing the heart rate
The hospice patient probably would have pain if not given the pain meds, so it is to keep the pain at bay.
Cold medicines contain alpha-adrenergic agonist to help with congestion and atropine as an anticholinergic to deter abuse. Anticholinergics give you dry mouth, urinary retention, constipation when levels are above normal as in abuse. An example would be lomotil, which has diphenoxylate and atropine. Atropine is only used as a method to keep people from abusing the drug.
Unfortunately this has nothing to do with Hospice itself. These are the guidelines that the insurance companies set. As unfortunate as it is and as bad as it sounds, they do it because hospice care is quite costly.
Yes. Though the treatment is archaic. Squint refers to esotropia. If the esotropia is caused by accommodation in a hyperopic child, you could use atropine to blur the vision in the child's "good" eye which would force the "bad" eye to work harder. This has the same effect as patching the "good" eye. More common practice is to use a patch because it can be done for a few hours per day, therefore decreasing the risk of developing amblyopia in the "good" eye. You could also use homatropine because its effects are not as long lasting and the side effects are less severe than atropine's.
It would not hurt, but is not neccessary.
Some will let you do that each state has its own rules and regulations when it comes to agency like the ones you mentioned hospice takes allot of care with home health they do allot of the same things that hospice does i would think that if the patient wanted it they would try and follow that request
Unless specifically required by the manufacturer to be refrigerated (which in my over 9 years' experience in 6 different pharmacies I've never seen), atropine vials can be stored at room temperature along with the other injectable drugs of the pharmacy.
1 milliliter = 20 drops.
I would say 35 drops!