Dose and dosage are commonly used medical terms that we often heard from the doctors who prescribed pills, tablets, capsules and other panacea. These words are also being encountered when we buy from the drug stores assisted by the pharmacists or from the nurses when we are in the hospitals. Some misconceptions arise when these two terms are being used interchangeably. What is the appropriate way to express them in writing or verbal communication?
Dose is the quantity of medicine to be taken and consumed by the patient from the prescription of a physician. It can be measured in a form of ml, cc or tsp for syrup based and mg for tablets or capsules. In contrast, when it comes to dosage, it refers to the frequency of taking the drug or basically, the number of times the medicine should be taken in a given schedule such as twice a day, every other day or every four hours. It depends whether the patient will be relieved from illness or otherwise will make the condition worse. That’s why it is important to issue medicines with proper prescription in terms of its dose and dosage as well as assess the capability of the patient’s body to ingest medicines.
