Pedi-Dose

Last Update: 7/15/02

usage demo
 download info

New Release -- Pedi-Dose ver 2.0

Just a simple to use. Easier to edit. Added calculated and reference data for Burn fluid replacement, Pediatric Trauma Score, GCS, and age related vital signs.

 

 Pedi-Dose was written to do the simple but repetitive mathematical tasks required when treating pediatric patients. I wrote it because I am an emergency physician practicing in a retirement area of Florida. The average age of my patients is about 65...far beyond the pediatric age group. I have the opportunity to see and treat children much less frequently than I did years ago. I find myself looking up almost every medication for mg/kg dosing because I use them so infrequently. In any case, I came upon a nifty little subset of C called PocketC and I wrote Pedi-Dose ver 1.0 to learn how to use PocketC and to create a quick-to-use medication reference. Version 2 has been re-written from scratch using Orb Forms, a handheld development tool written by Jeremy Dewey and his associates at Orbworks, who also developed Pocket C. If you are interested in Palm OS program development, I urge you to try out their products at www.orbworks.com.

The program is offered as "Charityware". You are free to use and distribute it as long as the program is distributed unaltered. The only request is that if you find the program useful that you donate $20.00 to the American Heart Assn--in your own name.

Disclaimer

Pedi-Dose does not make any claim as to which drug to use, or how to treat any illness. It is not a replacement for training or experience, it only calculates a medication / treatment dose based upon the weight of the patient. The drug database included is a "starter" to which the user can easily add, delete or modify. The target audience is those in the heath profession. Because of the changing nature of medication and dosage recommendations and varying patient requirements, the user must use sound clinical judgement to individualize therapy for each patient. Pedi-Dose is only a calculator. The author disclaims any liability for loss or damage resulting from its use.

Dose Calculation



Main Form

Enter the weight. The value entered will be converted to Kgs if the "Enter as LBS" button is selected

From the main form, select the drug and weight based dose is displayed.

Medication Edit



Need to modify / add drug specifications? Change to edit mode and select the drug.

Edit the data, delete the drug from the list or select New which adds a new blank form to which you edit the new name and drug dosage parameters.		 When you're done, select done and the main list will be updated. The new entry will be at the end of the list unless you have selected "Auto Sort" in the options menu or until you manually select sort from the main screen menu.

Resuscitation Calculations



Select emergency from the main screen and immediately calculate estimated ET tube size (<10Kg only), defibrillation joules. And...

emergency fluid calculation. And..

emergency drug calculation.

Burn Fluid Estimation

Select the Burn Calculator from the Menu/Other/Burn Calculator item. Adjust the diagram percentages using the age selector. Then estimate your burn size and enter it on the %burn line. Then tap "calc" and the burn fluid estimate is calculated. If you wish to include the maintenance fluids in the calculated volumes, check the "Inc" box under the Maintenance Fluid calculation. The volumes are calculated using the Parkland formula with half given in the 1st 8 hrs and the second half in the next 16 hrs.

Download and Installation

The download PDDose.zip file contains 4 files:

  • This HTML page.
  • pedidose.prc--install with orbformsRT if you have other OrbForms programs.
  • pedidoseSO.prc--PediDose stand alone. Install without the runtime package.
  • orbformsRT.prc--install only if you are running other programs created with OrbForms.
  • there is also a folder called pdgifs containg the graphics associated with the HTML page

In most cases, you'll only have to install "pedidoseSO.prc". There are not many OrbForms programs out there yet. If you do obtain or write other OrbForms programs, you can save about 66K of program space for each program that can use the OrbForms runtime package.

Unpack the zipped file to a location where you can easily locate the programs.

Using your Palm (or other) desktop program, select install and using the installation routine select either:
pedidoseSO.prc
or pedidose.prc PLUS orbformsRT.prc

the program(s) will be installed in your Palm device with your next HotSync.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated. Send them to:

Martin Beattie, MD

download PediDose