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Decoding Medical Terms Virginia

An overview of medical terms and their definitions.

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Decoding Medical Terms

Adapted From: Vocabulary For Dummies

If you're watching a TV drama about doctors, it doesn't matter whether you understand exactly what's being said. But when you're sitting in a doctor's office and he or she is talking about your child, your parent, or you, understanding the doctor is a must.

Kind and gentle medical terms

Modalities of therapy. Capillary hemangiomas. Spontaneous involution. Believe it or not, doctors bandy about complicated terms as though the terms actually mean something. And, believe it or not, they do — but only to other doctors. At some point in your life, you may have to deal with a medical specialist — and their language, as the preceding terminology shows, can be very intimidating. So what do you do when you have to talk to a doctor who uses complex medical terms? First, you ask them to put everything in plain English:

Modalities of therapy? It means "treatments."

Capillary hemangiomas? It refers to strawberry birthmarks.

Spontaneous involution? It means "disappearing on its own."

Table 1 can help you get a grasp of some basic, benign medical terms that you actually may not mind hearing your doctor say . . . until you get the bill, of course!

Table 1: Benign Medical Terms

Word	Part of Speech	Definition
antibiotic (an-ty-by-ah-tik)	noun	bacteria-killing substance
antidote (an-teh-doht)	noun	remedy that acts against a poison
antiseptic (an-tih-sep-tik)	noun	substance that prevents infection or decay by killing germs
asymptomatic (ay-simp-teh-ma-tik)	adj.	without symptoms
benign (bih-nyn)	adj.	harmless; not malignant
coagulate (koh-ag-yoo-layt)	verb	to thicken or clot, or to cause to do so (as in blood)
convalescence (kon-veh-les-sens)	noun	gradual recovery; period of recovery
diagnosis (dy-ag-noh-sis)	noun	decision or opinion based on an examination
plasma (plaz-ma)	noun	fluid portion of the blood
prognosis (prog-noh-sis)	noun	prediction of the probable course of a disease and the chances of recovery
remission (ree-mih-shun)	noun	disappearance of disease symptoms
suture (soo-chur)	verb/noun	joining two edges together by stitching, or similar means; a stitch
therapy (ther-ah-pee)	noun	treatment of disease

A CAT scan (computed axial tomography) is an x-ray image of an organ — often the brain. CAT scans help doctors view the body by providing a computer reconstruction of multiple images at different planes. An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is a scan of the body that uses magnetic energy, rather than radiation, to view an organ or body part. An MRI is especially useful for visualizing soft tissue. Still another way of seeing what's going on inside a body is a sonogram, which creates a visual image from sound waves. Sonograms are often used to determine the gender of a baby before birth.

Medical terms to come to terms with

It's true that medical jargon all too often makes simple and relatively harmless things sound scary. After all, most lay people would quake at a diagnosis of acute paronychia only to feel immense relief to discover that it's an infected hang nail.

Still, many medical terms are a bit more worthy of their scary sounding names. Hearing one of the terms in Table 2 may make you sit up a little straighter. If your doctor applies one of the following words to you, you may want to do some additional research on your condition.

Table 2: Medical Terms that Cause Concern

Word	Part of Speech	Definition
aneurysm (an-yoor-iz-em)	noun	sac formed by an enlarged weakened wall in arteries, veins, or the heart
carcinogenic (kar-sin-oh-jen-ik)	adj.	cancer-producing
comatose (koh-mah-tohs)	adj.	unconscious; in a coma
concussion (kon-kuhs-shun)	noun	brain injury due to violent blow or impact
hematoma (hee-meh-toh-ma)	noun	collection of blood, usually clotted, outside a blood vessel
incision (in-siz-zhun)	noun	cut, as in surgery
lacerated (las-er-ay-ted)	adj.	torn, as in a wound
lesion (lee-zhun)	noun	injury
melanoma (mel-eh-noh-ma)	noun	malignant skin tumor
migraine (my-grayn)	noun	intense, recurring headache
toxic (tox-ik)	adj.	poisonous
ulcer (ul-sur)	noun	open sore, as in the stomach lining

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For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.

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