Basic Pharmaceutical Calculations For Care Staff

A guide to navigate the course

This lesson introduces the different ways medicines are prepared and measured, such as tablets, capsules, liquids, and injections. Learners will explore the common units used in healthcare (mg, mcg, ml, units, etc.) and how to accurately convert between them. Through practical examples, the lesson shows how to apply these conversions to real prescriptions, ensuring safe and accurate medication administration in care settings.

This lesson covers determining the correct medication amount using the drug’s strength, patient weight, or ratio formulas. Key points: divide the prescribed dose by tablet/capsule strength to find how many to give, multiply daily doses by days to calculate monthly supply, use mg/kg for weight-based dosing, and apply ratio/proportion for liquid preparations. Accurate calculations ensure safe and effective medication administration

This lesson covers calculating the correct volume for IV or IM injections and determining IV flow rates. It explains how to use medication concentration, prescribed dose, and infusion time to ensure accurate administration for both single and continuous infusions.

This lesson explains how to reduce the concentration of a medication by adding a solvent to achieve a desired strength. It covers common methods, including serial dilution, percent dilution, weight/volume (w/v) dilution, and volume/volume (v/v) dilution. Understanding these techniques ensures accurate preparation of medications for safe and effective patient administration.