4.2 Reading Health Notices & Medicine Instructions

Read the instruction rather than inventing treatment

CAPLE lists understanding basic medicine information, including purpose and administration instructions, among CIPLE's reading skills. The language task is to identify what a supplied text says. It is not to diagnose an illness or decide a dose from memory. All short labels in this section are fictional language exercises, not product leaflets or instructions for taking a real medicine. For an actual product, follow its current leaflet and the prescribing professional's directions.

Identify the type of health text

A pharmacy door notice tells you about access to a service. A clinic appointment message tells you when or where to attend. A patient information leaflet tells you about a particular product. Read the heading before using the details: a phone number on a door notice is not a dosage, and a date beside consulta is not necessarily an expiry date.

Useful headings include para que serve (what it is for), como tomar (how to take), precauções (precautions), efeitos secundários (side effects) and como conservar (how to store). A complete leaflet may contain other sections. Do not assume an excerpt contains every warning or that the examples below apply to all medicines.

Purpose and symptom vocabulary

An original practice label says Para alívio da dor de garganta. A question asking the stated purpose is answered by sore-throat relief. “It cures every infection” adds an unsupported medical claim. Even when you recognise a symptom, answer from the text rather than assuming a diagnosis or selecting another product.

Frequency, duration and meal timing

De oito em oito horas means at eight-hour intervals. De doze em doze horas means at twelve-hour intervals. In a twenty-four-hour arithmetic cycle those intervals correspond to three and two intervals respectively. This does not mean that “with three meals” is interchangeable with “every eight hours”: meal times may be unevenly spaced.

Distinguish an interval from a treatment duration. Durante cinco dias means for five days. Daqui a cinco dias means five days from now. Há cinco dias means five days ago or a duration that began five days ago, depending on the verb. Those small words change the time relationship.

Do not add “thirty minutes before” when the text merely says before meals. Similarly, after meals does not automatically tell you why the instruction exists. A good comprehension answer preserves the amount of information actually stated.

Work through an original label

EXERCÍCIO DE LÍNGUA — PRODUTO FICTÍCIO
Finalidade: alívio da dor de garganta.
Instrução do exercício: uma toma de doze em doze horas, durante três dias.
Não utilizar em crianças. Em caso de dúvida, consulte o farmacêutico.
Conservar na embalagem de origem, fora do alcance das crianças.

Identify five separate facts: purpose, interval, duration, restriction and storage. The interval is twelve hours; the duration is three days. “Every three hours for twelve days” reverses the numbers. The text excludes children but supplies no specific age threshold, so do not invent one. It directs doubts to the pharmacist and does not say to double a dose.

For a time-calculation exercise only, if an instruction specifies a twelve-hour interval and the first stated time is 08h00, the next stated time is 20h00. Show the operation: 08h00 + 12 hours = 20h00. If a question includes another conditional instruction, read that separately rather than transferring this interval to it.

Read storage conditions carefully

Conservar means store or keep. Frigorífico means refrigerator; congelador means freezer. They are not synonyms. Temperatura inferior a 25 ºC means below 25 ºC; it does not itself mean “put in the freezer”. Na embalagem de origem means in the original packaging. Fora da vista e do alcance das crianças refers to keeping something away from children's sight and reach.

A condition such as depois de aberto changes the relevant period. A printed expiry date and a shorter period after opening can both matter. In an exercise, apply the exact dates and conditions provided. In real use, ask a professional if the instructions are unclear instead of substituting a general storage rule from this guide.

Understand an access notice

Original door notice:

A farmácia está encerrada. Para informações sobre a farmácia de serviço, consulte o aviso na montra. Atendimento noturno: toque à campainha e aguarde.

The immediate action is to read the window notice. Montra means shop window, campainha means bell, and aguarde means wait. The notice does not authorise forcing a door, promise a particular product is available or say every pharmacy follows the same opening hours. For non-emergency health guidance, gov.pt lists SNS 24 at 808 24 24 24; emergency services use 112. Distinguishing a service notice from a treatment instruction keeps the language task clear.