Math help

[guest4/14]

Hello all,

I need help with a math problem. I'm about to start trends and my professor decided to add 2 problems that I have never encountered before so I'm not sure how to solve them. I have the correct answers, I just don't know how to solve the problem to get them.

I would use my math textbook but alas I'm stuck at my boyfriend's house all day, so a little help would be appreciated! The problem is as follows:

A patient with acute asthma is prescribed 400 mg of Aminophylline to be added to 50 ml D5W over 1 hour. If the tubing drop factor is 15 gtts/ml calculate the drops per minute if the available medicine comes as Aminophylline 500 mg/25 ml. _________ gtts/min

Again, I'm not looking for the answer, I'm just looking for help on how to solve this problem. I appreciate it.

[203bravo, MSN, APRN]

There are 2 steps to get the correct answer

1st - figure out how many mL of the medication that you need to add to the solution: figure out how many mg there are in each mL and then divide the prescribed dose by that amount and you will have the total mL you will have to add to have the correct mg.

2nd to figure out the gtt/min multiple the total amount of solution (mL of D5W + mL of medication to be added) by the drip factor (tubing gtt/ml) then divide by the total total number of minutes the infusion is going to take (number of hours * 60)

[guest4/14]

Thank you! I couldn't figure out the first part.. I got 20 mL but did not know I needed to add it to the 50 mL of the solution. So the answer I was getting was too small. Now I am getting the correct answer, so thank you!!