Math 1010 Drug Filtering Lab Name: Skyler Montalvo

The purpose of this lab is to come up with a continuous model for exponential decay.

Dot assumes that her kidneys can filter out 25% of a drug in her blood every 4 hours. She knows
that she will need to take a drug test for an interview in a couple of days. She plans on taking one
1000-milligram dose of the drug to help manage her pain.

1.) Fill in the table showing the amount of the drug in your blood as a function of time and round
each value to the nearest milligram. The first two data points are already completed.

TIME SINCE AMOUNT OF

TAKING DRUG
THE DRUG (HR) IN HER BLOOD
(MG)
0 1000
4 750
8 563
12 422
16 317
20 238
24 179
28 134
32 101
36 76
40 57
44 43
48 32
52 24
56 18
60 14
64 11
68 8

What might a model for this data look like?

A model for this data would like an downward swooping graph starting at1000 MG all the way down 8 MG
(Exponential decay graph)

2.) Use a graphing utility to make a plot of the above data. Label axes appropriately.
 MG in blood
1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68

MG in blood

3.) Based on your graph, what can you say about the data? For example, is there a pattern? Is
there constant slope?

At the beginning of the graph the slope changes drastically, but as time goes on the slope
keeps changing but the changes are less noticeable

4.) How many milligrams of the drug are in Dot’s blood after 2 days?

32 MG of drug are in Dot’s blood after 2 days

5.) How many milligrams of the drug are in Dot’s blood after 5 days?

0.179 MG

6.) How many milligrams of the drug are in Dot’s blood 30 hours after she took the drug? Explain
your reasoning.

117 MG A(30)=1000e^(-0.07*30)

7.) A blood test is able to detect the presence of this drug if there is at least 0.1 mg in a person’s
blood. How many days will it take before the test will come back negative? Explain your
answer.
At 120 hours there will be 0.179 MG left in her system,

8.) Will the drug ever be completely removed from her system? Explain your reasoning. What
complications might arise from having excess amounts in her system?
 I do not believe that the drug will ever leave her system, but I do believe that it will become an
amount so small that it will virtually be 0. To conclude it won’t ever leave her system but it will
be so small that it basically is 0

9.) Since there is a constant rate of decay, a continuous exponential decay model can be used to
determine how much drug is in her system at any time.

Exponential Decay Model

A(t )  A0e kt
Where A(t) is amount of drug in blood at time t in hours,
A0 is the initial amount of drug, and
k is the rate of decay (it will be a negative number)

You will have to find the actual value of k that works for this model. Write down the
exponential decay model for the amount of drug in Dot’s blood as a function of time:

Model: A(t)=1000e^(-0.07x)

Now use that model to fill in the following table:

TIME SINCE AMOUNT OF

TAKING DRUG
THE DRUG (HR) IN HER BLOOD
(MG)
0 1000
4 750
8 571.21
12 431.71
16 326.3
20 246.6
24 186.37
28 140.9
32 106.5
36 80.5
40 60.81
44 45.95
 48 34.73
52 26.25
56 19.84
60 14.99
64 11.33
68 8.56

10.) Interpret the parameters of this exponential model in terms of the context of the
problem.

11.) Compare your values with the estimated values in the model. How close were they?
Why might they be different?

The values at the beginning of the table were quite a few numbers different, but as I got the end of
the table the numbers were almost the same. These values might be different because the
exponential decay model is easier to pinpoint numbers, where in the begging I was only able to round
to whole numbers.

12.) Use a graphing utility to graph the original data along with a graph of the model on the
same set of axes.

MG in blood
1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68

MG in blood

13.) Were you expecting a horizontal asymptote? What might that mean in the context of
the problem?
Yes there will be a horizontal asymptote because it is impossible for the amount of drug in her system
to reach 0. Therefore the asymptote may get close to 0, but it will never get to 0

14.) Using your model, how much drug is in her system 17 hours after taking the drug?

304.2 MG

15.) Using your model, how long will it take for exactly one-half of the drug to remain in her
system?

About 10 hours

16.) Using this model, how long will it take for 0.1 mg of the drug to remain in her system?

About 130 hours or almost 5.5 days

17.) Do you think the continuous decay model is more accurate for predicting the amount of
drug in her blood? Why? Or why not?

Yes, because with this model you can get the exact amount of drug in her system at any given time

18.) What other factors should be considered in coming up with a more realistic model?

I think that if we had mare information about the person taking the drugs, height, weight, age etc. This
would help me be able to see if drugs “disappear” faster from men vs women old vs young etc.

19.) Reflective writing: Did this project change the way you think about how math can be
applied to the real world? Write one paragraph stating what ideas changed and why. If this
project did not change the way you think, write how this project gave further evidence to
support your existing opinion about applying math. Be specific.

This project didn’t really change the way I think about math in real life because I know that math is
used in almost everything in our daily lives, but it is interesting to see the different kinds of information
you can get just by using math the right way.