Difference between Dose and Dosage

Like many other related words, people find it hard to differentiate between dose and dosage. Nevertheless, with a little knowledge and research, you can easily find the difference between both of these words. Just like many other words, both of these terms are correlated with each other but no doubt that they differ slightly in the meaning. No doubt both of these words are associated with your prescription and the amount of medicine that a patient can consume but there lies a big difference between them.

Dose refers to the quantity of medicine that a person is allowed to take at a time. For example, if the doctor recommends 2 capsules after each mean, then the dose of this person is 2 capsules. Similarly, if the doctor recommends a patient to take 5 ml of syrup after each meal, then 5 ml is considered the dose of that person.

On the other hand, dosage refers to the frequency of medicine that a person is allowed to take during a day. It not only includes the quantity of the medicine but also tells a person about how many times he/she should take that amount of dosage in a day. For example, if a person takes 2 capsules three times a day, then this complete information is called his dosage.

Therefore, the most common difference between these two terms is that dose can be a part of the dosage but the case is not likewise. Dose is only limited to the amount of medicine that one should take at a time while dosage refers to the total times a person would have to take that particular amount of dosage.

Instructions

  • 1

    Dose:

    It refers to the amount of medicine that is to be taken by a patient as prescribed by the doctor. After a person goes to the doctor because of his illness, the doctor prescribes him/her medicines and states which medicine to take and in how much quantity. This part of the prescription refers to the ‘dose’ of medicine that is allowed by the doctor to a particular patient.

    - Image courtesy: gettyimages.com

  • 2

    Dosage:

    After the doctor has prescribed medicines along with the suitable potencies, the doctor always mention for how many days and how many times a day the patient has to consume these medicines. This part refers to the term dosage as it mentions the frequency of each medicine.

    - Image courtesy: gettyimages.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


8 × = forty