Introduction
All nurses use math daily in their workplaces while providing health care for patients in hospitals and any other place. Nurses, together with doctors, apply math concepts while writing prescriptions or administering medications to the patients. They also apply math while sketching out success rates and epidemics statistical graphs and use math during CAT scans and x-rays since math offers plenty of information and data to medical practitioners, including nurses (Hutton, 2008).
It is important for nurses to have an appropriate knowledge in math and patients should be aware that all nurses and other medical practitioners have been appropriately trained by learning mathematics and their application in medicine.
Prescriptions and Medication
Commonly, nurses provide prescriptions to their patients for different diseases and the prescriptions they provide show a precise medication and dosage quantity. Nearly all medications have been assigned instructions for dosage quantities in milligrams (mg) per kilogram (kg) and nurses are required to work out the amount of medication a patient is needed to be assigned based on their kind of illness, the degree of the illness, weight, age, and other measurements.
If the weight of the patient has been provided only in pounds, nurses are required to convert that measurement to kilograms and later evaluate the quantity of milligrams for the prescription (Koohestani, 2010). The above also is applicable for other factors such as age. Big variations between mg/lbs and mg/kg are there and all practitioners need to know how to covert correctly weight dimensions. Nurses should also find out the period in which the prescription will last.
For instance, if a patient is prescribed to take, say one pill, two times a day, therefore, one month of pills would be around 60 pills. However, most patients want two to three months prescriptions for assurance and reliability functions and nurses should evaluate the number of pills that they should be assigned. Nurses can perform these calculations mentally with speed and accuracy to avoid any errors that may lead to severe costs to patients.
Nurses should also reflect on the duration the medicine provided to the patient will remain in the body. This helps to evaluate how often the patient is required to take medication to keep an adequate quantity of the medicine in the body (Wilfong, Szolis, and Haus, 2007, p. 69). For instance, a patient is prescribed to take a pill in the morning that has 60mg of a certain medicine.
During the morning of the next day, the body has used up 50% of the medication and this signifies that 30mg have been used up and just 30mg stay in the patient’s body. The patient goes on to take 60mg pill every morning and this signifies that on the morning of day two, patient’s body has the 30 mg that remained, in addition to another 60mg that the patient will take in the morning of day two, which sum up to be 90mg (Boye, 2008, p. 41).
As this condition goes on, the nurses should establish how frequent a patient should take the medication and determine the duration as well. This helps to maintain sufficient medicine in the body of the patient to function successfully, but without providing an overdose to the patient.
The quantity of medicine in the patient’s body after taking medication reduces by a particular fraction in a specific period, possibly 10% every 60 minutes, for instance. This reduction in percentage may be provided as a rational figure, 1/10 and this invariable rational reduction produces a geometric series. Therefore, if a patient is provided with a pill that contains 100mg of a particular medicine, the reduction of medication in the patient’s body every 60 minutes can be provided as: 100, 10, 1, 1/10, 1/100, and so forth (Boye, 2008, p. 41).
From the above evaluation, it can be observed that the quantity of medication after five hours is relatively small, roughly zero. The sequence of numbers provided above is geometric since 1/10 serves as a common factor between expressions provided. This signifies that every 60 minutes, the quantity of medication reduces by 1/10 and nurses should be familiar with this concept (Boye, 2008, p. 41). Nurses can apply this concept to make decision quickly on how frequent a patient is required to take assigned medication without getting overdose.
Ratios and Proportions
Nurses as well apply proportions and ratios while prescribing and administering medication and are required to understand how much medicine a person requires based on the patient weight. Nurses should understand the doctor’s demands and the orders may be provided as 50mcg/kg/min.
If the weight of the patient is 50kg, then the nurse must evaluate the milligrams that the patient should be given in one hour. To evaluate the quantity, nurses should convert micrograms (mcg) to milligrams (mg) and if 1mcg is equivalent to 0.001mg, it is possible to get the amount (in mg) of 50mcg through establishing a proportion to provide accurate amount.
- 1/0.001=50/X
After cross-multiplication and division, we find that 50mcg = 0.05mg and if the weight of the patient is 50kg, then the patient is given 0.05(50) = 2.5 mg per minute. Since there are 60 minutes in one hour, the patient must be given 2.5(60) = 150mg. Nurses and other medical practitioners have special ‘shortcuts’ that they apply to perform this math correctly and professionally in a minimal period of time.
Numbers provide nurses and other health care providers the sufficient information concerning the patients’ condition. White blood cell counts are usually provided in form of a numerical value between 4 and 10 and a count, for example, of 7.1 in reality signifies that there are 7100 white blood cells in every small quantity of blood (around a microlitre).
It is also very important in other calculations, such as the measure of creatinine (a measure of the activity of kidney) in a blood sample is provided as Xmg per deciliter of blood (Hutton, 2008). Nurses are required to have enough understanding that a measure of 1.3 can show that there is some degree of kidney failure. Numbers allow nurses to identify the state of a patient and help them to provide measurements of health that can serve as warning signs of infection, disease, and illness that need immediate and proper attention.
Body Mass Index
In medicine and health perspective, it is very important to evaluate Body Mass Index (BMI) of a patient before providing any prescribed medicine. A person’s BMI is equivalent to his weight pounds, multiplied by 704.7 and divided by the square of the person’s height provided in inches and this formula is not often correct for people who have an extreme high muscle mass.
This is because the mass of the muscle is higher than the mass of fat contained by the same person and for this case, the calculation of BMI of a person may bring about confusion. Therefore, there are special tools that calculate the BMI of a man who has 145 pounds and height of 5’6’’ as shown below.
The first step is to convert the height measurement of 5’6 into measurement appropriate for the calculation, which is in form of inches. Therefore, 5’6’’ is equal to 66’’ and the man’s Body Mass Index would be:
The above BMI is normal since a normal Body Mass Index is always below 25 and a person possessing the BMI between 25 and 29.9 is taken as overweight. A person who has the BMI which is above 30 is taken as obese and these measurements of BMI provide nurses information concerning the condition of a patient. Nurses should be able to calculate patients’ BMI since they can use these figures to recommend health advice to patients.
There is a standard table that is helpful to nurses when matching the findings to provide an estimation of health and unhealthy BMI and guide them while giving prescription and medical advice. Therefore, nurses need to understand the formula for calculating Body Mass Index.
CAT Scans
Most advanced and improved approach that nurses and other providers apply mathematics is in application of CAT scans. A CAT scan is an exclusive kind of x-ray that is called a Computerized Axial Tomography scan and a common x-ray may just offer a two-sided view of a section of the patient’s body. Therefore, if a minor bone is concealed between major bones and x-ray machine, the minor bone may become invisible and appears as a shadow.
It is very important to all medical practitioners to observe a three dimensional view of the organs of human body, mainly the human brain. CAT scans permit nurses to observe internal parts of the brain, or any other body organ, with a three dimensional representation or view (Saba and McCormick, 2001, p. 87). During the CAT scan, the x-ray tool navigates all over the brain performing a brain scan, or any other body organ being scanned, from several angles. Afterward, a computer works out all recorded scans together and produces a three dimensional representation.
During every occasion the x-ray tool creates a complete revolution around the brain, the x-ray tool is providing a representation of a thin piece of the brain, beginning at the apex of the head and going towards the lower side of the head (Saba and McCormick, 2001, p. 87). The three dimensional representation produced by the CAT scan offers sufficient and essential information to the nurses and nurses need to be familiar with the CAT scan approach since it entails numerous calculation and math concepts.
Conclusion
Mathematics contributes an important role in medicine to all health care professions since lives of the people are engaged and it is essential for nurses to provide conclusion with speed and accuracy in their mathematical evaluations. Numbers have been used in all health care facilities as a way of communicating information that is very vital in the medical environment. Another area where math is used in medicine engages lithotripter.
Lithotripter is a medical tool that applies a property of an ellipse to cure kidney stones and gallstones problems, and nurses must be familiar with these calculations.
References
Boye, M. (2008). Math for Nurses: A Pocket Guide to Dosage Calculation and Drug Preparation. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Hutton, B. M. (2008). Nursing Mathematics: The Importance of Application. Nurs Stand, 13(11): 35-8.
Koohestani, H. (2010). Barriers to the reporting of medication administration errors among nursing students. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 27(1): 66-74.
Saba, V., & McCormick, K. (2001). Essentials of computers for nurses: informatics for the new millennium. Bolton: McGraw-Hill.
Wilfong, D., Szolis, C., & Haus, C. (2007). Nursing School Success: Tools For Constructing Your Future. London: Jones & Bartlett Learning.