Medication Interaction Risk Network¶
Specification¶
The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 10: Substances - Effects and Safer Choices.
Type: graph-model
**sim-id:** medication-interaction-risk-network<br/>
**Library:** vis-network<br/>
**Status:** Specified
Bloom Taxonomy Level: Analyze (L4)
Bloom Verb: examine, differentiate, organize
Learning objective: Students examine documented interaction risks between
categories of medications and substances (alcohol, opioid pain relievers,
anti-anxiety medications, antihistamines, unregulated/counterfeit pills)
and differentiate low-risk combinations from documented high-risk
combinations, without any dosage or method information.
Node types:
1. Substance/medication category nodes (blue rectangles): "Alcohol,"
"Opioid Pain Relievers," "Anti-Anxiety Medications," "Antihistamines,"
"Unregulated/Counterfeit Pills"
2. Risk-level edge labels connecting relevant pairs (not all pairs
connected): "Documented High Risk" (red), "Use Caution — Ask
Pharmacist" (yellow)
Edge types:
- "Documented High Risk" (red, thick): Alcohol—Opioid Pain Relievers,
Alcohol—Anti-Anxiety Medications, Opioid Pain Relievers—Anti-Anxiety
Medications, any category—Unregulated/Counterfeit Pills (labeled
"Unknown Contents — Cannot Be Assessed")
- "Use Caution — Ask Pharmacist" (yellow, thin): Alcohol—Antihistamines
Layout: Force-directed network with the five category nodes distributed
evenly, edges colored and weighted by risk level
Interactive features:
- Hover any node: brief description of that medication/substance category
- Click any node: highlights all its connected edges and dims the rest of
the network
- Click any edge: infobox names the documented mechanism (e.g., "Both
slow breathing; combined effect on the respiratory system is greater
than either alone")
- Drag, zoom, pan enabled
Legend: color key for risk-level edges and a note that the
"Unregulated/Counterfeit Pills" node connects to every other node at
"Documented High Risk" because contents cannot be verified
Implementation: vis-network JavaScript library, force-directed layout;
edge and node data in a structured lookup object. Content restriction: no
node or edge describes a dosage amount, a method of combining substances,
or how to obtain any substance — only documented interaction risk
categories and mechanisms.