Undermedication

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The failure to provide a sufficient amount of medication necessary for optimal treatment outcomes
2. The condition of receiving less medication than is needed to effectively treat a medical issue
3. Administering a dose of medicine that is too low to achieve the intended therapeutic effect

Etymology: "Undermedication" is a plain compound built from the prefix "under-" and "medication," and its history is simply that of its two parts joined together. The prefix "under-" comes from Old English and carries the sense of "beneath," "below," or "insufficiently," as in "underpaid" or "undercook." Attached to "medication," which comes from the Latin "medicare," meaning "to heal," it describes giving less medicine than is needed for a treatment to work properly. The pattern is productive, so the same prefix turns many everyday nouns into shortfall terms: underfeeding, underinsurance, understaffing. Because the pieces are transparent, the word's meaning can be read straight from its parts, with no change of sense along the way.

Synonyms: insufficient medication, inadequate treatment, low dosage, under-treatment, subtherapeutic