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2,000 | In health care, an orphan patient is a patient who has been "lost" within the system or has no primary provider overseeing their care.
Usually, the primary provider is a general practitioner who takes care of some of the basic health needs and then refers to a specialist for complicated medical problems. Thus, orphan patients are sometimes referred to as "no-family-doctor" patients | Orphan patient |
2,001 | Overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of disease that will never cause symptoms or death during a patient's ordinarily expected lifetime and thus presents no practical threat regardless of being pathologic. Overdiagnosis is a side effect of screening for early forms of disease. Although screening saves lives in some cases, in others it may turn people into patients unnecessarily and may lead to treatments that do no good and perhaps do harm | Overdiagnosis |
2,002 | Oxygen saturation is the fraction of oxygen-saturated hemoglobin relative to total hemoglobin (unsaturated + saturated) in the blood. The human body requires and regulates a very precise and specific balance of oxygen in the blood. Normal arterial blood oxygen saturation levels in humans are 97–100 percent | Oxygen saturation (medicine) |
2,003 | Palsy is a medical term which refers to various types of paralysis or paresis, often accompanied by weakness and the loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking. The word originates from the Anglo-Norman paralisie, parleisie et al. , from the accusative form of Latin paralysis, from Ancient Greek παράλυσις (parálusis), from παραλύειν (paralúein, “to disable on one side”), from παρά (pará, “beside”) + λύειν (lúein, “loosen”) | Palsy |
2,004 | Pannus is an abnormal layer of fibrovascular tissue or granulation tissue. Common sites for pannus formation include over the cornea, over a joint surface (as seen in rheumatoid arthritis), or on a prosthetic heart valve. Pannus may grow in a tumor-like fashion, as in joints where it may erode articular cartilage and bone | Pannus |
2,005 | In medicine, paresis () is a condition typified by a weakness of voluntary movement, or by partial loss of voluntary movement or by impaired movement. When used without qualifiers, it usually refers to the limbs, but it can also be used to describe the muscles of the eyes (ophthalmoparesis), the stomach (gastroparesis), and also the vocal cords (Vocal cord paresis). Neurologists use the term paresis to describe weakness, and plegia to describe paralysis in which all voluntary movement is lost | Paresis |
2,006 | In a medical encounter, a past medical history (abbreviated PMH), is the total sum of a patient's health status prior to the presenting problem.
Questions to include
Different sources include different questions to be asked while conducting a PMH, but in general, they include the following:
General state of health: e. g | Past medical history |
2,007 | Pathognomonic (rare synonym pathognomic) is a term, often used in medicine, that means "characteristic for a particular disease". A pathognomonic sign is a particular sign whose presence means that a particular disease is present beyond any doubt. Labelling a sign or symptom "pathognomonic" represents a marked intensification of a "diagnostic" sign or symptom | Pathognomonic |
2,008 | A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care provider.
Etymology
The word patient originally meant 'one who suffers' | Patient |
2,009 | Night terror, also called sleep terror, is a sleep disorder causing feelings of panic or dread and typically occurring during the first hours of stage 3–4 non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and lasting for 1 to 10 minutes. It can last longer, especially in children. Sleep terror is classified in the category of NREM-related parasomnias in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders | Night terror |
2,010 | In the healthcare industry, pay for performance (P4P), also known as "value-based purchasing", is a payment model that offers financial incentives to physicians, hospitals, medical groups, and other healthcare providers for meeting certain performance measures. Clinical outcomes, such as longer survival, are difficult to measure, so pay for performance systems usually evaluate process quality and efficiency, such as measuring blood pressure, lowering blood pressure, or counseling patients to stop smoking. This model also penalizes health care providers for poor outcomes, medical errors, or increased costs | Pay for performance (healthcare) |
2,011 | Perinatal mortality (PNM) is the death of a fetus or neonate and is the basis to calculate the perinatal mortality rate. Perinatal means "relating to the period starting a few weeks before birth and including the birth and a few weeks after birth. "Variations in the precise definition of the perinatal mortality exist, specifically concerning the issue of inclusion or exclusion of early fetal and late neonatal fatalities | Perinatal mortality |
2,012 | Periodic breathing is clusters of breaths separated by intervals of apnea or near-apnea. As opposed to normal breathing which is usually regular, periodic breathing is defined as three or more episodes of central apnea lasting at least 4 seconds, separated by no more than 30 seconds of normal breathing. Periodic breathing was originally thought to arise from serious neurologic or cardiovascular disease and therefore to carry a poor outlook | Periodic breathing |
2,013 | Permissive hypotension or hypotensive resuscitation is the use of restrictive fluid therapy, specifically in the trauma patient, that increases systemic blood pressure without reaching normotension (normal blood pressures). The goal blood pressure for these patients is a mean arterial pressure of 40-50 mmHg or systolic blood pressure of less than or equal to 80. This goes along with certain clinical criteria | Permissive hypotension |
2,014 | Phonagnosia (from Ancient Greek φωνή phone, "voice" and γνῶσις gnosis, "knowledge") is a type of agnosia, or loss of knowledge, that involves a disturbance in the recognition of familiar voices and the impairment of voice discrimination abilities in which the affected individual does not suffer from comprehension deficits. Phonagnosia is an auditory agnosia, an acquired auditory processing disorder resulting from brain damage, other auditory agnosias include cortical deafness and auditory verbal agnosia also known as pure word deafness. Since people suffering from phonagnosia do not suffer from aphasia, it is suggested that the structures of linguistic comprehension are functionally separate from those of the perception of the identity of the speaker who produced it | Phonagnosia |
2,015 | Phoniatrics or phoniatry is the study and treatment of organs involved in speech production, mainly the mouth, throat (larynx), vocal cords, and lungs. Problems treated in phoniatrics include dysfunction of the vocal cords, cancer of the vocal cords or larynx, inability to control the speech organs properly (speech disorders), and vocal loading problems. According to the Union of European Phoniatricians, phoniatrics is "the medical specialty dealing with voice, speech, language, hearing and swallowing disorders" | Phoniatrics |
2,016 | Physical disorder (as a medical term) is a poorly defined term typically used in contrast to a mental disorder or a genetic disorder. The term mental disorder is heavily used in psychiatric medicine, and is defined in some psychiatric medicine texts, most notably the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). However, the more generic term of medical disorder is poorly defined, and is not mentioned in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases, nor many common medical textbooks | Physical disorder |
2,017 | Physical inactivity refers to the lack of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in a person's lifestyle. It is distinct from sedentary behavior.
Health effects
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined physical inactivity as a global public health problem | Physical inactivity |
2,018 | Physiological agonism describes the action of a substance which ultimately produces the same effects in the body as another substance—as if they were both agonists at the same receptor—without actually binding to the same receptor. Physiological antagonism describes the behavior of a substance that produces effects counteracting those of another substance (a result similar to that produced by an antagonist blocking the action of an agonist at the same receptor) using a mechanism that does not involve binding to the same receptor.
Examples
Physiological agonists
Epinephrine induces platelet aggregation, and so does hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) | Physiological agonism and antagonism |
2,019 | A pilon fracture, is a fracture of the distal part of the tibia, involving its articular surface at the ankle joint. Pilon fractures are caused by rotational or axial forces, mostly as a result of falls from a height or motor vehicle accidents. Pilon fractures are rare, comprising 3 to 10 percent of all fractures of the tibia and 1 percent of all lower extremity fractures, but they involve a large part of the weight-bearing surface of the tibia in the ankle joint | Pilon fracture |
2,020 | Point-of-care testing (POCT), also called near-patient testing or bedside testing, is defined as medical diagnostic testing at or near the point of care—that is, at the time and place of patient care. This contrasts with the historical pattern in which testing was wholly or mostly confined to the medical laboratory, which entailed sending off specimens away from the point of care and then waiting hours or days to learn the results, during which time care must continue without the desired information.
Technology overview
Point-of-care tests are simple medical tests that can be performed at the bedside | Point-of-care testing |
2,021 | Posterior cortex usually means the posterior (back) part of the complete cerebral cortex and includes the occipital, parietal, and temporal cortices. In other words, the posterior cortex includes all the cerebral cortex without the frontal cortex.
In combination with specific cortical areas, 'posterior cortex' usually refers to the posterior (back) part of that cortical area | Posterior cortex |
2,022 | The postictal state is the altered state of consciousness after an epileptic seizure. It usually lasts between 5 and 30 minutes, but sometimes longer in the case of larger or more severe seizures, and is characterized by drowsiness, confusion, nausea, hypertension, headache or migraine, and other disorienting symptoms.
The ictal period is the seizure itself; the interictal period is the time between seizures, when brain activity is more normal; and the preictal period is the time leading up to a seizure:
Ictal period refers to a physiologic state or event such as a seizure, stroke, or headache | Postictal state |
2,023 | Prandial relates to a meal. Postprandial (from post prandium) means after eating a meal, while preprandial is before a meal.
Usages of postprandial
The term postprandial is used in many contexts | Prandial |
2,024 | A precancerous condition is a condition, tumor or lesion involving abnormal cells which are associated with an increased risk of developing into cancer. Clinically, precancerous conditions encompass a variety of abnormal tissues with an increased risk of developing into cancer. Some of the most common precancerous conditions include certain colon polyps, which can progress into colon cancer, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, which can progress into multiple myeloma or myelodysplastic syndrome | Precancerous condition |
2,025 | In medicine, a presentation is the appearance in a patient of illness or disease—or signs or symptoms thereof—before a medical professional. In practice, one usually speaks of a patient as presenting with this or that. Examples include:
" | Presentation (medical) |
2,026 | The prevention paradox describes the seemingly contradictory situation where the majority of cases of a disease come from a population at low or moderate risk of that disease, and only a minority of cases come from the high risk population (of the same disease). This is because the number of people at high risk is small. The prevention paradox was first formally described in 1981 by the epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose | Prevention paradox |
2,027 | Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis is the application of healthcare measures to prevent diseases. Disease and disability are affected by environmental factors, genetic predisposition, disease agents, and lifestyle choices, and are dynamic processes which begin before individuals realize they are affected. Disease prevention relies on anticipatory actions that can be categorized as primal, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention | Preventive healthcare |
2,028 | Preventive nutrition is a branch of nutrition science with the goal of preventing or delaying or reducing the impacts of disease and disease-related complications. It is concerned with a high level of personal well-being, disease prevention, and diagnosis of recurring health problems or symptoms of discomfort which are often precursors to health issues. Preventive nutrition may assist in prolonging the onset of non-communicable diseases (such as Type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease) and may allow adults to experience more "healthy living years" later in life | Preventive nutrition |
2,029 | Proarrhythmia is a new or more frequent occurrence of pre-existing arrhythmias, paradoxically precipitated by antiarrhythmic therapy, which means it is a side effect associated with the administration of some existing antiarrhythmic drugs, as well as drugs for other indications. In other words, it is a tendency of antiarrhythmic drugs to facilitate emergence of new arrhythmias.
Types of proarrhythmia
According to the Vaughan Williams classification (VW) of antiarrhythmic drugs, there are 3 main types of Proarrhythmia during treatment with various antiarrhythmic drugs for Atrial Fibrillation or Atrial flutter:
Ventricular proarrhythmia
Torsades de pointes (VW type IA and type III drugs)
Sustained monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (usually VW type IC drugs)
Sustained polymorphic ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation without long QT (VW types IA, IC, and III drugs)
Atrial proarrhythmia
Conversion of atrial fibrillation to flutter (usually VW type IC drugs or amiodarone) | Proarrhythmia |
2,030 | A prodromus ('forerunner' or 'precursor') aka prodrome is a term used in the natural sciences to describe a preliminary publication intended as the basis for a later, more comprehensive work.
It is also a medical term used for a premonitory symptom, that is, a symptom indicating the onset of a disease. The origin of the word is from the 19th century: via French from New Latin prodromus, from Greek prodromos forerunner | Prodromus |
2,031 | Prognosis (Greek: πρόγνωσις "fore-knowing, foreseeing"; PL: prognoses) is a medical term for predicting the likelihood or expected development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen (and how quickly) or remain stable over time; expectations of quality of life, such as the ability to carry out daily activities; the potential for complications and associated health issues; and the likelihood of survival (including life expectancy). A prognosis is made on the basis of the normal course of the diagnosed disease, the individual's physical and mental condition, the available treatments, and additional factors. A complete prognosis includes the expected duration, function, and description of the course of the disease, such as progressive decline, intermittent crisis, or sudden, unpredictable crisis | Prognosis |
2,032 | Progression-free survival (PFS) is "the length of time during and after the treatment of a disease, such as cancer, that a patient lives with the disease but it does not get worse". In oncology, PFS usually refers to situations in which a tumor is present, as demonstrated by laboratory testing, radiologic testing, or clinically. Similarly, "disease-free survival" is the length of time after patients have received treatment and have no detectable disease | Progression-free survival |
2,033 | Progressive disease or progressive illness is a disease or physical ailment whose course in most cases is the worsening, growth, or spread of the disease. This may happen until death, serious debility, or organ failure occurs. Some progressive diseases can be halted and reversed by treatment (surgical, dietary, or lifestyle interventions) | Progressive disease |
2,034 | A computer-based protocol system is a paradigm providing a set of tools which allow health care providers access to current guidelines which they can apply in practice. Studies have shown that protocols can aid in optimising patient care. There are two types of protocol systems: passive and active | Protocol system |
2,035 | A pulmonary consolidation is a region of normally compressible lung tissue that has filled with liquid instead of air. The condition is marked by induration (swelling or hardening of normally soft tissue) of a normally aerated lung. It is considered a radiologic sign | Pulmonary consolidation |
2,036 | Pulmonary drug delivery is a route of administration in which patients use an inhaler to inhale their medications and drugs are absorbed into the bloodstream via the lung mucous membrane. This technique is most commonly used in the treatment of lung diseases, for example, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Different types of inhalers include metered-dose inhalers (MDI), dry powder inhalers (DPI), soft mist inhalers (SMI) and nebulizers | Pulmonary drug delivery |
2,037 | The pulmonary wedge pressure (PWP) (also called pulmonary arterial wedge pressure (PAWP), pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), pulmonary artery occlusion pressure (PAOP), or cross-sectional pressure) is the pressure measured by wedging a pulmonary artery catheter with an inflated balloon into a small pulmonary arterial branch. It estimates the left atrial pressure.
Pulmonary venous wedge pressure (PVWP) is not synonymous with the above; PVWP has been shown to correlate with pulmonary artery pressures in studies, albeit unreliably | Pulmonary wedge pressure |
2,038 | Pus is an exudate, typically white-yellow, yellow, or yellow-brown, formed at the site of inflammation during bacterial or fungal infection. An accumulation of pus in an enclosed tissue space is known as an abscess, whereas a visible collection of pus within or beneath the epidermis is known as a pustule, pimple or spot.
Description
Pus consists of a thin, protein-rich fluid (historically known as liquor puris) and dead leukocytes from the body's immune response (mostly neutrophils) | Pus |
2,039 | Pyonephrosis (Greek pyon "pus" + nephros "kidney") is an infection of the kidneys' collecting system. Pus collects in the renal pelvis and causes distension of the kidney. It can cause kidney failure | Pyonephrosis |
2,040 | In general, quality of life (QoL or QOL) is the perceived quality of an individual's daily life, that is, an assessment of their well-being or lack thereof. This includes all emotional, social and physical aspects of the individual's life. In health care, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an assessment of how the individual's well-being may be affected over time by a disease, disability or disorder | Quality of life (healthcare) |
2,041 | The quaternary prevention, concept coined by the Belgian general practitioner Marc Jamoulle, are the actions taken to identify a patient at risk of overmedicalisation, to protect them from new medical invasion, and to suggest interventions which are ethically acceptable. Quaternary prevention is the set of health activities to mitigate or avoid the consequences of unnecessary or excessive intervention of the health system.
Explanation of term
Marc Jamoulle divided medical situations into four quadrants based on if the patient was experiencing illness (i | Quaternary prevention |
2,042 | Radiofrequency ablation (RFA), also called fulguration, is a medical procedure in which part of the electrical conduction system of the heart, tumor or other dysfunctional tissue is ablated using the heat generated from medium frequency alternating current (in the range of 350–500 kHz). RFA is generally conducted in the outpatient setting, using either local anesthetics or twilight anesthesia. When it is delivered via catheter, it is called radiofrequency catheter ablation | Radiofrequency ablation |
2,043 | A rapid antigen test (RAT), sometimes called a rapid antigen detection test (RADT), antigen rapid test (ART), or loosely just a rapid test, is a rapid diagnostic test suitable for point-of-care testing that directly detects the presence or absence of an antigen. RATs are a type of lateral flow test detecting antigens, rather than antibodies (antibody tests) or nucleic acid (nucleic acid tests). Rapid tests generally give a result in 5 to 30 minutes, require minimal training or infrastructure, and have significant cost advantages | Rapid antigen test |
2,044 | A rapid diagnostic test (RDT) is a medical diagnostic test that is quick and easy to perform. RDTs are suitable for preliminary or emergency medical screening and for use in medical facilities with limited resources. They also allow point-of-care testing in primary care for things that formerly only a laboratory test could measure | Rapid diagnostic test |
2,045 | The rapid strep test (RST) is a rapid antigen detection test (RADT) that is widely used in clinics to assist in the diagnosis of bacterial pharyngitis caused by group A streptococci (GAS), sometimes termed strep throat. There are currently several types of rapid strep test in use, each employing a distinct technology. However, they all work by detecting the presence of GAS in the throat of a person by responding to GAS-specific antigens on a throat swab | Rapid strep test |
2,046 | Remission is either the reduction or disappearance of the signs and symptoms of a disease. The term may also be used to refer to the period during which this reduction occurs. A remission may be considered a partial remission or a complete remission | Remission (medicine) |
2,047 | Responsible drug use maximizes the benefits and reduces the risk of negative impact psychoactive drugs cause on the lives of the user. For illegal psychoactive drugs that are not diverted prescription controlled substances, some critics believe that illegal recreational drug use is inherently irresponsible, due to the unpredictable and unmonitored strength and purity of the drugs and the risks of addiction, infection, and other side effects.
Nevertheless, harm reduction advocates claim that the user can be responsible by employing the same general principles applicable to the use of alcohol: avoiding hazardous situations, excessive doses, and hazardous combinations of drugs; avoiding injection; and not using drugs at the same time as activities that may be unsafe without a sober state | Responsible drug use |
2,048 | A review of systems (ROS), also called a systems enquiry or systems review, is a technique used by healthcare providers for eliciting a medical history from a patient. It is often structured as a component of an admission note covering the organ systems, with a focus upon the subjective symptoms perceived by the patient (as opposed to the objective signs perceived by the clinician). Along with the physical examination, it can be particularly useful in identifying conditions that do not have precise diagnostic tests | Review of systems |
2,049 | Right atrial pressure (RAP) is the blood pressure in the right atrium of the heart. RAP reflects the amount of blood returning to the heart and the ability of the heart to pump the blood into the arterial system. RAP is often nearly identical to central venous pressure (CVP), although the two terms are not identical, as a pressure differential can sometimes exist between the venae cavae and the right atrium | Right atrial pressure |
2,050 | A right-to-left shunt is a cardiac shunt which allows blood to flow from the right heart to the left heart. This terminology is used both for the abnormal state in humans and for normal physiological shunts in reptiles.
Clinical Significance
A right-to-left shunt occurs when:
there is an opening or passage between the atria, ventricles, and/or great vessels; and,
right heart pressure is higher than left heart pressure and/or the shunt has a one-way valvular opening | Right-to-left shunt |
2,051 | Risk of infection is a nursing diagnosis which is defined as "the state in which an individual is at risk to be invaded by an opportunistic or pathogenic agent (virus, fungus, bacteria, protozoa, or other parasite) from endogenous or exogenous sources" and was approved by NANDA in 1986. Although anyone can become infected by a pathogen, patients with this diagnosis are at an elevated risk and extra infection controls should be considered.
Endogenous sources
The risk of infection depends on a number of endogenous sources | Risk of infection |
2,052 | The risk of mortality (ROM) provides a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of in-hospital death for a patient. The ROM classes are minor, moderate, major, and extreme. The ROM class is used for the evaluation of patient mortality | Risk of mortality |
2,053 | Risky sexual behavior is the description of the activity that will increase the probability that a person engaging in sexual activity with another person infected with a sexually transmitted infection will be infected or become pregnant, or make a partner pregnant. It can mean two similar things: the behavior itself, and the description of the partner's behavior. The behavior could be unprotected vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse | Risky sexual behavior |
2,054 | Sclerosis (from Greek σκληρός sklērós, "hard") is the stiffening of a tissue or anatomical feature, usually caused by a replacement of the normal organ-specific tissue with connective tissue. The structure may be said to have undergone sclerotic changes or display sclerotic lesions, which refers to the process of sclerosis.
Common medical conditions whose pathology involves sclerosis include:
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—also known as Lou Gehrig's disease or motor neurone disease—a progressive, incurable, usually fatal disease of motor neurons | Sclerosis (medicine) |
2,055 | Screen time is the amount of time spent using a device with a screen such as a smartphone, computer, television, or video game console. The concept is under significant research with related concepts in digital media use and mental health. Screen time is correlated with mental and physical harm in child development | Screen time |
2,056 | Screening, in medicine, is a strategy used to look for as-yet-unrecognised conditions or risk markers. This testing can be applied to individuals or to a whole population. The people tested may not exhibit any signs or symptoms of a disease, or they might exhibit only one or two symptoms, which by themselves do not indicate a definitive diagnosis | Screening (medicine) |
2,057 | The adjective secretomotor refers to the capacity of a structure (often a nerve) to induce a gland to secrete a substance (usually mucus or serous fluid).
Secretomotor nerve endings are frequently contrasted with sensory neuron endings and motor nerve endings. An example of secretomotor activity can be seen with the lacrimal gland, which secretes the aqueous layer of the tear film | Secretomotor |
2,058 | Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like socializing, watching TV, playing video games, reading or using a mobile phone or computer for much of the day. A sedentary lifestyle contributes to poor health quality, diseases as well as many preventable causes of death | Sedentary lifestyle |
2,059 | Self-diagnosis is the process of diagnosing, or identifying, medical conditions in oneself. It may be assisted by medical dictionaries, books, resources on the Internet, past personal experiences, or recognizing symptoms or medical signs of a condition that a family member previously had.
Depending on the nature of an individual's condition and the accuracy of the information they access, self-diagnoses can vary greatly in their safety | Self-diagnosis |
2,060 | A sequela (UK: , US: ; usually used in the plural, sequelae ) is a pathological condition resulting from a disease, injury, therapy, or other trauma. Derived from the Latin word meaning "sequel", it is used in the medical field to mean a complication or condition following a prior illness or disease. A typical sequela is a chronic complication of an acute condition—in other words, a long-term effect of a temporary disease or injury—which follows immediately from the condition | Sequela |
2,061 | Sever's disease, also known as calcaneus apophysitis, is an inflammation at the back of the heel (or calcaneus) growth plate in growing children. The condition is thought to be caused by repetitive stress at the heel. This condition is benign and common and usually resolves when the growth plate has closed or during periods of less activity | Sever's disease |
2,062 | Severity of illness (SOI) is defined as the extent of organ system derangement or physiologic decompensation for a patient. It gives a medical classification into minor, moderate, major, and extreme. The SOI class is meant to provide a basis for evaluating hospital resource use or to establish patient care guidelines | Severity of illness |
2,063 | Sham surgery (placebo surgery) is a faked surgical intervention that omits the step thought to be therapeutically necessary.
In clinical trials of surgical interventions, sham surgery is an important scientific control. This is because it isolates the specific effects of the treatment as opposed to the incidental effects caused by anesthesia, the incisional trauma, pre- and postoperative care, and the patient's perception of having had a regular operation | Sham surgery |
2,064 | Shit life syndrome (SLS) is a phrase used by physicians in the United Kingdom and the United States for the effect that a variety of poverty or abuse-induced disorders can have on patients.
Sarah O'Connor's 2018 article for the Financial Times "Left behind: can anyone save the towns the economy forgot?" on shit life syndrome in the English coastal town of Blackpool won the 2018 Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils. O'Connor wrote that
Blackpool exports healthy skilled people and imports the unskilled, the unemployed and the unwell | Shit life syndrome |
2,065 | Simultanagnosia (or simultagnosia) is a rare neurological disorder characterized by the inability of an individual to perceive more than a single object at a time. This type of visual attention problem is one of three major components (the others being optic ataxia and optic apraxia) of Bálint's syndrome, an uncommon and incompletely understood variety of severe neuropsychological impairments involving space representation (visuospatial processing). The term "simultanagnosia" was first coined in 1924 by Wolpert to describe a condition where the affected individual could see individual details of a complex scene but failed to grasp the overall meaning of the image | Simultanagnosia |
2,066 | Skull bossing is a descriptive term in medical physical examination indicating a protuberance of the skull, most often in the frontal bones of the forehead ("frontal bossing"). Although prominence of the skull bones may be normal, skull bossing may be associated with certain medical conditions, including nutritional, metabolic, hormonal, and hematologic disorders.
Frontal bossing
Frontal bossing is the development of an unusually pronounced forehead which may also be associated with a heavier than normal brow ridge | Skull bossing |
2,067 | Slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE or skiffy, slipped upper femoral epiphysis, SUFE or souffy, coxa vara adolescentium) is a medical term referring to a fracture through the growth plate (physis), which results in slippage of the overlying end of the femur (metaphysis).
Normally, the head of the femur, called the capital, should sit squarely on the femoral neck. Abnormal movement along the growth plate results in the slip | Slipped capital femoral epiphysis |
2,068 | Slips and capture is a type of error that may occur in high-stress situations. It has been described as a phenomenon in the psychology of human error, such that a person may inadvertently perform one action while intending to do another.
The term "slips and capture" became more widely known in the early 21st century in the United States, after being referred to by law enforcement in two prominent fatal police shooting cases in 2009 and 2015 | Slips and capture |
2,069 | The SOAP note (an acronym for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan) is a method of documentation employed by healthcare providers to write out notes in a patient's chart, along with other common formats, such as the admission note. Documenting patient encounters in the medical record is an integral part of practice workflow starting with appointment scheduling, patient check-in and exam, documentation of notes, check-out, rescheduling, and medical billing. Additionally, it serves as a general cognitive framework for physicians to follow as they assess their patients | SOAP note |
2,070 | The field of social medicine seeks to implement social care through
understanding how social and economic conditions impact health, disease and the practice of medicine and
fostering conditions in which this understanding can lead to a healthier society. Social medicine as a scientific field gradually began in the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent increase in poverty and disease among workers raised concerns about the effect of social processes on the health of the poor. The field of social medicine is most commonly addressed today by public health efforts to understand what are known as social determinants of health | Social medicine |
2,071 | Social prescribing (also known as community referral) is when health professionals refer patients to support in the community, in order to improve their health and wellbeing. The concept has gained support in the NHS organisations of the United Kingdom as well as in Ireland and the Netherlands and forms part of the NHS Long Term Plan. The referral mechanisms, target groups, services offered through social prescribing vary across settings | Social prescribing |
2,072 | Social-emotional agnosia, also known as emotional agnosia or expressive agnosia, is the inability to perceive facial expressions, body language, and voice intonation. A person with this disorder is unable to non-verbally perceive others' emotions in social situations, limiting normal social interactions. The condition causes a functional blindness to subtle non-verbal social-emotional cues in voice, gesture, and facial expression | Social-emotional agnosia |
2,073 | Sopor is a condition of abnormally deep sleep or a stupor from which it is difficult to rouse a person. It involves a profound depression of consciousness, which is manifested by drowsiness, while maintaining coordinated defensive reactions to stimuli such as pain, harsh sound, and bright light, and preserving vital functions. Sopor may be caused by a drug; such drugs are deemed soporific | Sopor (sleep) |
2,074 | Speech-language pathology (or speech and language pathology) is a field of healthcare expertise practiced globally. Speech-language pathology (SLP) specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of communication disorders (speech and language impairments), cognitive-communication disorders, voice disorders, pragmatic disorders, social communication difficulties and swallowing disorder across the lifespan. It is an independent profession considered an "allied health profession" or allied health profession by professional bodies like the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and Speech Pathology Australia | Speech–language pathology |
2,075 | The SPIKES protocol is a method used in clinical medicine to break bad news to patients and families. As receiving bad news can cause distress and anxiety, clinicians need to deliver the news carefully. By using the SPIKES method for introducing and communicating information to patients and their families, it can aid in the presentation of the material | SPIKES |
2,076 | Spinnbarkeit (English: spinnability), also known as fibrosity, is a biomedical rheology term which refers to the stringy or stretchy property found to varying degrees in mucus, saliva, albumen and similar viscoelastic fluids. The term is used especially with reference to cervical mucus at the time just prior to or during ovulation.
Under the influence of estrogens, cervical mucus becomes abundant, clear, and stretchable, and somewhat like egg white | Spinnbarkeit |
2,077 | A spontaneous breathing trial is a test for patients on mechanical ventilation, before they can be weaned from the ventilator, i. e. return to normal breathing | Spontaneous breathing trial |
2,078 | Spontaneous remission, also called spontaneous healing or spontaneous regression, is an unexpected improvement or cure from a disease that usually progresses. These terms are commonly used for unexpected transient or final improvements in cancer. Spontaneous remissions concern cancers of the haematopoietic system (blood cancer, e | Spontaneous remission |
2,079 | A stenosis (from Ancient Greek στενός, "narrow") is an abnormal narrowing in a blood vessel or other tubular organ or structure such as foramina and canals. It is also sometimes called a stricture (as in urethral stricture). Stricture as a term is usually used when narrowing is caused by contraction of smooth muscle (e | Stenosis |
2,080 | A subclinical infection—sometimes called a preinfection or inapparent infection—is an infection by a pathogen that causes few or no signs or symptoms of infection in the host. Subclinical infections can occur in both humans and animals. Depending on the pathogen, which can be a virus or intestinal parasite, the host may be infectious and able to transmit the pathogen without ever developing symptoms; such a host is called an asymptomatic carrier | Subclinical infection |
2,081 | A subluxation is an incomplete or partial dislocation of a joint or organ. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a subluxation is a "significant structural displacement", and is therefore always visible on static imaging studies, such as X-rays. By contrast, the pseudoscientific concept of a chiropractic "vertebral subluxation" may or may not be visible on x-rays | Subluxation |
2,082 | Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a fatal complication of epilepsy. It is defined as the sudden and unexpected, non-traumatic and non-drowning death of a person with epilepsy, without a toxicological or anatomical cause of death detected during the post-mortem examination. While the mechanisms underlying SUDEP are still poorly understood, it is possibly the most common cause of death as a result of complications from epilepsy, accounting for between 7 | Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy |
2,083 | Sudomotor function refers to the autonomic nervous system control of sweat gland activity in response to various environmental and individual factors. Sweat production is a vital thermoregulatory mechanism used by the body to prevent heat-related illness as the evaporation of sweat is the body’s most effective method of heat reduction and the only cooling method available when the air temperature rises above skin temperature. In addition, sweat plays key roles in grip, microbial defense, and wound healing | Sudomotor |
2,084 | Historically, suicide terminology has been rife with issues of nomenclature, connotation, and outcomes, and terminology describing suicide has often been defined differently depending on the purpose of the definition (e. g. , medical, legal, administrative) | Suicide terminology |
2,085 | The surgical sieve is a thought process in medicine. It is a typical example of how to organise a structured examination answer for medical students and physicians when they are challenged with a question. It is also a way of constructing answers to questions from patients and their relatives in a logical manner, and structuring articles and reference texts in medicine | Surgical sieve |
2,086 | Surgical smoke is the by-product produced by electrosurgery, laser tissue ablation, or other surgical techniques. Surgical smoke, as a health threat to those exposed to it, has become a growing concern. Studies have demonstrated, depending on several factors, to possibly contain carcinogens, mutagens, irritant chemicals, live viruses and bacteria, and viable malignant cells | Surgical smoke |
2,087 | A surrogate decision maker, also known as a health care proxy or as agents, is an advocate for incompetent patients. If a patient is unable to make decisions for themselves about personal care, some agent must make decisions for them. If there is a durable power of attorney for health care, the agent appointed by that document is authorized to make health care decisions within the scope of authority granted by the document | Surrogate decision-maker |
2,088 | In clinical trials, a surrogate endpoint (or surrogate marker) is a measure of effect of a specific treatment that may correlate with a real clinical endpoint but does not necessarily have a guaranteed relationship. The National Institutes of Health (USA) defines surrogate endpoint as "a biomarker intended to substitute for a clinical endpoint". Surrogate markers are used when the primary endpoint is undesired (e | Surrogate endpoint |
2,089 | Symptomatic treatment, supportive care, supportive therapy, or palliative treatment is any medical therapy of a disease that only affects its symptoms, not the underlying cause. It is usually aimed at reducing the signs and symptoms for the comfort and well-being of the patient, but it also may be useful in reducing organic consequences and sequelae of these signs and symptoms of the disease. In many diseases, even in those whose etiologies are known (e | Symptomatic treatment |
2,090 | A syndrome is a set of medical signs and symptoms which are correlated with each other and often associated with a particular disease or disorder. The word derives from the Greek σύνδρομον, meaning "concurrence". : 1818 When a syndrome is paired with a definite cause this becomes a disease | Syndrome |
2,091 | A systemic disease is one that affects a number of organs and tissues, or affects the body as a whole.
Examples
Mastocytosis, including mast cell activation syndrome and eosinophilic esophagitis
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Systemic vasculitis e. g | Systemic disease |
2,092 | Terminal cleaning is the thorough cleaning of a room after use, used in healthcare environments to control the spread of infections.
Justification
Nosocomial infections claim approximately 90,000 lives in the United States annually. When patients are hospitalized and identified as having methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or infections that can be spread to other patients, best practices isolate these patients in rooms that are subjected to terminal cleaning when the patient is discharged | Terminal cleaning |
2,093 | Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, dementia or advanced heart disease than for injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment | Terminal illness |
2,094 | Testicular microlithiasis is an unusual condition diagnosed on testicular ultrasound. It is believed to be found in 0. 1–0 | Testicular microlithiasis |
2,095 | Therapeutic inertia (also known as clinical inertia) is a measurement of the resistance to therapeutic treatment for an existing medical condition. It is commonly measured as a percentage of the number of encounters in which a patient with a condition received new or increased therapeutic treatment out of the total number of visits to a health care professional by the patient. A high percentage indicates that the health care provider is slow to treat a medical condition | Therapeutic inertia |
2,096 | A topical medication is a medication that is applied to a particular place on or in the body. Most often topical medication means application to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes to treat ailments via a large range of classes including creams, foams, gels, lotions, and ointments. Many topical medications are epicutaneous, meaning that they are applied directly to the skin | Topical medication |
2,097 | A toxidrome (a portmanteau of toxic and syndrome) is a syndrome caused by a dangerous level of toxins in the body. The term was coined in 1970 by Mofenson and Greensher. It is often the consequence of a drug overdose | Toxidrome |
2,098 | A ureterovaginal fistula is an abnormal passageway existing between the ureter and the vagina. It presents as urinary incontinence. Its impact on women is to reduce the "quality of life dramatically | Ureterovaginal fistula |
2,099 | Blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away from the tissues | Blood vessel |
Subsets and Splits