NA Medical Terms

Acute

Sudden

Abduction

Moving away from the body

Ambulatory

Able to walk

Aphasia

Inability to express oneself properly through loss of speech and/or loss of verbal comprehension

Expressive aphasia

Can’t speak

Receptive aphasia

Can’t understand what is being said

Artery

Large blood vessel carrying blood away from the heart to the tissues

Arthritis

Inflammation of the joints and tissues

Attitudes

Feeling and opinions one has or shows toward situations

Bradycardia

Slow heartbeat

Colostomy

Creating an opening in the abdominal wall to large intestine

Comatose

Used to describe the condition of a patient in a coma. Sometime the word unconscious is used.

Constipation

Infrequent and difficult bowel evacuation

Convulsion

Violent

CVA

Cerebral Vascular Accident

Cyanosis

Bluish

Cognition

The ability to think

Decubitus ulcer

Ulcerated

Deformity

Distortion/disfiguration

Degeneration

Breakdown

Defecate

Bowel movement

Dementia

Progressive deterioration of mental functions

Diarrhea

Frequent watery bowel evacuation

Dysphagia

Difficulty swallowing

Dyspnea

Difficulty breathing (shortness of breath)

Edema

Condition in which the body tissues contain an excessive amount of fluid

Emesis

Vomiting

Ethics

Standards of behavior

Ethnicity

Special customs

Exploitation

Illegal use of vulnerable adult’s property or personal items

Fowlers

A variation of supine position where head and torso are elevated in a semi or high sitting position (semi fowlers 30–45 degrees

Geriatric

Study of elderly

Hemiplegia

Paralysis of one side of the body (right/left)

Hemorrhage

Abnormal loss of discharge of blood

Hypertension

High blood pressure

Hypotension

Low blood pressure

Impaction

Tightly wedged stool (patient can’t get poop out)

Involuntary

Uncontrollable

Incontinent

Involuntary evacuation of bowel or bladder

Mental

Relates to the mind

Myocardial infarction

Heart attack

Neglect

Failure to provide goods and services necessary to avoid physical harm

Pathogen

Disease causing micro-organism (bacteria

Paraplegia

Paralysis of the lower half of the body - waist down

Physical

Relates to the body

Podiatrist

Foot doctor

Prone

Lying on your stomach

Prosthesis

Artificial or man made part of organ (dentures

Pulse

Rhythmical throbbing of an artery showing how fast the heart is beating

Reality orientation

Assisting residents to be aware of person

Respiration

Act of breathing

Shearing

Force of skin over a bone when the bone moves but the skin stays a point of contact

Sign

Evidence of something abnormal in the body which is observed by the nursing team through seeing

Standard precautions

Practices that reduce risk of disease transmission like wearing gloves or washing hands

Supine

Lying on your spine (flat on your back)

Symptom

A subjective experience reported by the patient

Temperature

Measurement of body heat

Vein

Small blood vessel carrying blood to the heart to be reoxygenated

Voluntary

Controllable

Void

Urination