Medical Terminology For Dummies

Medical Terminology For Public
Do you understand when two physicians talk a bout your case?

This article will cross the boundaries between you and your doctor, helping you to understand the medical terminology found in nearly all the medical reports.
Introduction

The medical process starts with the case history, which includes examination, investigation and diagnosis, and culminates in a decision about management. A similar if less elaborate process must be followed by a pharmacist to respond to symptoms presented by a patient. All this information is gathered together to provide a systematic classification of information about a patient.

Terminology of disease
Etiology and pathology
Etiology: is concerned with general causes of a disease and the circumstance
 E.G: the etiology of tuberculosis (TB) involves poor public and domestic hygiene, reduced patient immune status.
Pathology is concerned with the mechanisms of the disease process, what the disease does, and how it does so.(for example) the pathophysiology of essential hypertension involves a raised peripheral vascular resistance and possibly an expansion of the intravascular fluid volume.

Epidemiology: how common a condition is , and whether any particular population group is more susceptible by virtue of birth or environment.
Prevalence refers to the number of active cases of a disease at any one time.
Morbidity describes the prevalence of a disease; thus heart disease has a relatively high morbidity, renal cancer a low morbidity.
Comorbidity refers to any other disease the patient has.
Signs vs symptoms.
Symptoms are subjective; they are noticed by the patient and either reported – the things a patient complains of – or elicited on questioning. Signs are usually found objectively on examination by the clinician, although occasionally may be noticed by the patient.
Presentation The typical pattern of clinical features caused by a disease.
Pathognomonic. A well-defined group of clinical features that commonly occur together is sometimes called a syndrome

Investigations:-
Include the tests or procedures used to confirm a diagnosis.

Differential diagnosis
Distinguishing between closely related conditions.

Survival is the proportion of patients alive at a specified time after diagnosis.

Management and treatment
Management embraces all the decisions made to deal with the patient’s complaint
Treatment comprises the range of interventions, like drugs, surgery or physiotherapy
Palliative care in very advanced or incurable disease, management might involve no more than symptom control, nursing care, simple reassurance and appropriate counseling.
These are some of the mos popular medical terms found nearly in every medical report.