EXAM #2 KEY DEFINITIONS

CHAPTER 3 & 4

Cerebrovascular Accident(CVA)

A stroke. An interruption of blood flow to or within the brain that permanently destroys brain tissue or causes a temporary cessation of function.

Anoxia

A condition of being completely without oxygen ; a complete lack of oxygen to the brain.

Hypoxia

A partial loss of oxygen to brain tissue

Ischemia

Blockage of or restriction in a blood vessel

Hemorrhage

Bleeding of a ruptured blood vessel

Ischemic Stroke

A CVA that occurs as a result of a blood vessel becoming occluded or blocked.

Thrombus

A site of occlusion of a blood vessel, usually the result of slow acculmation of fatty materials such as cholesterol on the walls of the artery.

Thrombotic Stroke

A CVA that occurs when a thrombus forms and interrupts blood flow to the brain.

Atherosclerosis

A condition in which a person has buildup of fatty materials such as cholesterol in the blood, and these materials accumulates, slowly on the walls of the arteries narrowing the arteries and possibly restricting blood flow.

Embolus

A mass, such as blood clot, that originates in the body and travels through the vascular system

• within the bloodstream that is carried through the vascular system by the forces of circulation.

Embolic Stroke

When an embolus lodges within a blood vessel and restricts or cuts off blood circulation to the brain.

Thromboembolus

A piece of a thrombus that breaks off and travels through the circulatory system, thereby becoming an embolus.

Transient Ischemic attack ( TIA)

A small blockage of or restriction in a blood vessel within the brain that resolves itself within 24 hours

Ischemic Core

The location of the focal damage to tissue within the brain following ischemia. Also known as the infarct.

Tissue Necrosis

The deatn of body tissue

Ischemic Penumbra

An area of tissue within the brain surrounding the ischemic core that has lost the appropriate level of blood supply to function but that is still receiving enough collateral blood flow from other vessels to stay alive.

Hemorrhagic Stroke

A CVA that occurs when a blood vessel within the brain ruptures.

Hypertension

High blood pressure

Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

A hemorrhagic stroke that occurs when a blood vessel between the arachnoid mater and the pia mater ruptures.

Intracerebral hemorrhage

 A bleed from a ruptured blood vessel that occurs within the brain, often of traumatic origin.

Intracranial pressure

 The level of pressure within the skull and therefore the amount of pressure that is exerted on the brain.

Aneurysm

An abnormal stretching and ballooning of the wall of a blood vessel.

Toxic brain injury

Damage to the brain from high levels of poisonous substances in the body.

Brain tumor

an abnormal growth of cells in the brain

Neoplasm

A brain tumor. An abnormal growth of cells in the brain that serves no proposed in the body.

Primary tumor

An abnormal mass of tissues that originates at its location within the body. 

Secondary tumor

a cancerous mass of tissue that has spread from another part of the body. Also known as a metastatic tumor.

Metastatic Tumor

a cancerous growth of abnormal tissue that spreads from a primary tumor to grow in  another part of the body (also known as secondary tumor) 

Oligodendroglioma

A brain tumor arising from oligodendrocytes, which are myelin-producing cells within the central nervous system.

Biopsy

Surgery to remove a piece of tissue for diagnostic purposes.

Malignant brain tumor:

Brain cancer

Brain Cancer

A malignant tumor of the brain or one located centrally within the spinal cord.

Benign brain tumor

A cancerous growth within the brain that cannot spread to other parts of the body.

Mass effect

The displacement effect or crushing force on nearby tissues that a tumor exerts.

Surgical Trauma

The collateral damage to the tissues of the body that occurs during the process of surgery.

Encephalitis

A general term that refers to an acute infection or inflammation of the brain or spinal cord.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

The virus that leads to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)

The final stage of HIV infection characterized by severe damage and impairment of the immune system.

Neuro-AIDS

Neurological changes as a result of HIV/AIDS that create cognitive deficits and dementia. Also known as HIV/AIDS dementia and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND).

HIV//AIDS Dementia

Cognitive changes as a result of HIV/AIDS that are severe enough to affect an individual's activities of daily living.

Prion

A small infectious protein with its own genetic coding that attacks structures within the central or peripheral nervous system.

Myoclonus

An involuntary, rapid twitching of a muscle or group of muscles.

Syphilis

 A sexually transmitted disease that is caused by corkscrew-shaped bacteria called spirochetes. Syphilis is highly treatable and curable with the antibiotic penicillin.

Neurosyphilis

A variation of syphilis that infects the nervous system.

Poliomyelitis

A virus that attacks the peripheral nervous system and causes paralysis and absent reflexes. Also known as polio.

Spinal polio

Poliomyelitis that affects the spinal nerves and the muscles innervated by the spinal nerves.

Bulbar polio

Poliomyelitis that affects the cranial nerves and the muscles innervated by the cranial nerves.

Bulbospinal polio

Poliomyelitis that affects both spinal and cranial nerves.

Postpolio syndrome:

Symptoms of muscle weakness, muscle pain, and fatigue in those limbs that were affected by a previous polio infection.

Seizure

A sudden, often periodic, abnormal level of electrical discharge occurring within the brain.

Aura

The period of time immediately preceding the full onset of a seizure in which a person might experience some warning signs that a seizure is imminent.

Ictus

The main stage of the seizure during which the primary symptoms are experienced.

Postictus

The stage of seizure that follows the ictus that can last for minutes or hours, during which people might display lethargy and confusion and experience memory loss, weakness, and depression.

Postictal Confusión

The short-lived and transient cognitive deficits following the ictus stage of a seizure.

Interictal period

The time between the end of one seizure and the beginning of the next seizure.

Status epilepticus

A state of constant seizure. When an individual experiences one seizure that leads right into another seizure, with no interictal period.

Partial seizure:

A sudden abnormal level of electrical discharge in which pathologic levels of electricity in the brain remain confined to a particular region of the brain.

Simple Partial Seizure

A sudden abnormal level of electrical discharge in the brain during which the electrical activity is limited to a small area within one cerebral hemisphere, and the individual experiencing the seizure remains conscious. 

Complex Partial Seizure

A sudden abnormal level of electrical discharge that occurs over a large section of a single cerebral hemisphere and that creates an altered state of consciousness.

Generalized Seizures

Sudden abnormal levels of electrical discharge that affect the entire brain and that are associated with a total loss of consciousness.

Tonic-clonic seizure

A sudden, often periodic, abnormal level of electrical discharge occurring within the brain during which an individual passes through a stage of muscle contraction and loss of consciousness (tonic phase) followed by a stage of abnormal motor activity (clonic phase).

Tonic Phase

The initial phase of a tonic-clonic seizure characterized by a loss of consciousness and a sudden stiffening of the body and limbs due to muscle contractions.

Clonic Phase

The second phase of a tonic-clonic seizure characterized by shaking, jerking, and extraneous body movements.

Petit Mal Seizure

A generalized sudden abnormal level of electrical discharge in the brain in which an individual loses awareness for a few seconds and might seem simply to stare off into space before coming to.

Aphasia

An acquired deficit in language abilities resulting from damage to the brain.

Expressive Language Deficit

Difficulty in formulation and production of language to communicate an intended meaning.

Receptive Language Deficit

a deficit in the ability to derive meaning from language.

Verbal Comprehension Deficit

an inability to comprehend the spoken language produced by others.

Paraphasias

Errors in expressive language that are not related to motor deficits, but that are linked to higher-level language deficits associated with aphasia.

Phonemic paraphasia

an error in speech in which the word produced is discernable, mostly correct, and yet there are phoneme-level mistakes.

Neologism

An error in speech that occurs when an individual produces a word that is entirely different from the intended word and is mostly unintelligible.

Semantic Paraphasia

An error in speech in which one word is substituted for another word that is similar in meaning.

Unrelated verbal paraphasia

A verbal substitution of a word that is unrelated in meaning to the intended word.

Perseverate

To do something repeatedly,redundantly, and, more often than not, inappropriately.

Perseverative

A word that is said repeatedly and inappropriately.

Perseverative paraphasia

a word that is produced repeatedly and inadvertently by an individual with aphasia instead of the intended word.

Agrammatism

The lack of appropriate grammatical construction of language individuals with aphasia display.

Function Words

The in-between words used to frame the major content words in a sentence.

Content Words

The words that carry the majority of meaning in a sentence.

Alexia

an acquired impairment of reading.

Agraphia

an acquired impairment in the ability to form letters or form words using letters.

Self-repair

When a speaker restates or revises a word or phrase in an attempt to produce it in an error-free fashion or to refine it to better reflect the intended meaning.

Mixed Aphasia

a nonspecific form of fluent or nonfluent aphasia that combines attributes of more distinctive forms of such acquired language deficits.

Lesion Localizaction

 the practice of identifying the location of pathology in the brain based on the profile of deficits the individual displays.

Cortical Aphasias

acquired deficits in language abilities that arise as a result of damage to the cortex.

Subcortical aphasia

that arise as a result of damage to subcortical structures.

Zone of Language

 the anatomic area within the language-dominant hemisphere that houses Broca's and Wernicke's areas as well as the arcuate fasciculus.

Wernicke’s Aphasia

a fluent aphasia with receptive deficits,repetition deficits, verbal output void of meaning, and a usual lack of awareness of the presence of these deficits.

Anosognosia

the pathologic condition of having a deficit and being unable to recognize that the deficit exists or denying that the deficit exists despite evidence indicating otherwise.

Logorrhea

a near nonstop, usually meaningless and tangential, output of speech.

Empty Speech

vocalized communication often produced by those with fluent aphasia that is abundant yet lacking in meaning.

Conduit d'approche:

a zeroing-in behavior in which a person with aphasia correctly produces a target word after several repeated and unsuccessful attempts of which each failed attempt is closer to the correct production of the target word than the last.

Anomic Aphasia

an acquired deficit in language abilities characterized by fluent speech and intact receptive language but a disproportionately severe deficit in naming abilities.

Thalamic Aphasia

language deficits as a result of lesion at the thalamus that are characterized by almost fluent speech, significant anomia in spontaneous speech but less so in confrontational naming tasks, impaired receptive language, perseverative, semantic paraphasias,normal articulation, hypophonic voice, intact repetition, and intact grammar.

Striatocapsular aphasia

language deficits associated with lesion at the striatum that occur as a result of a lack of blood flow to the cortical language areas.

Quality of Life

an individual's perception of his or her condition in life in relation to culture, values, goals, expectations, standards, and concerns.

Neuroplasticity

the ability of a part of the brain to change its previous function and to take on and learn a new and previously unknown role.

Learned Nonuse

when an individual learns to compensate for a deficit by employing other intact abilities and, in doing so, ceases to exercise the physical or intellectual ability in which the deficit is present.

Errorful Learning

acquisition of new knowledge in a way that produces some level of failure. Learning by trial and errorr.