Term | Definition |
alzheimers disease | Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. Alzheimer's disease (AD), is one form of dementia that gradually gets worse over time. It affects memory, thinking, and behavior. |
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis | a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. |
anesthetic | a substance that induces insensitivity to pain |
anesthetist | a medical specialist who administers anesthetics |
autism | a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. |
bells palsy | paralysis of the facial nerve, causing muscular weakness in one side of the face |
cerebral contusion | associated with multiple microhemorrhages, small blood vessel leaks into brain tissue |
cerbrovascular accident | A stroke is sometimes called a "brain attack." If blood flow is stopped for longer than a few seconds, the brain cannot get blood and oxygen. Brain cells can die, causing permanent damage |
cognition | the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses |
coma | a state of deep unconsciousness that lasts for a prolonged or indefinite period, caused especially by severe injury or illness |
concussion | temporary unconsciousness caused by a blow to the head |
cranial hematoma | occurs when a blood vessel ruptures within your brain or between your skull and your brain |
delirium | an acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs in fever, intoxication, and other disorders and is characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech |
dementia | a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning |
dyslexia | a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence |
encephalitis | inflammation of the brain, caused by infection or an allergic reaction |
epidural anesthesia | anesthesia produced by injection of a local anesthetic into the peridural space of the spinal cord beneath the ligamentum flavum |
gullain-barre syndrome | an acute form of polyneuritis, often preceded by a respiratory infection, causing weakness and often paralysis of the limbs |
hallucination | an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present |
ischemic stroke | A stroke is sometimes called a "brain attack." If blood flow is stopped for longer than a few seconds, the brain cannot get blood and oxygen. Brain cells can die, causing permanent damage. |
lethargy | a lack of energy and enthusiasm |
menigitis | inflammation of the meninges caused by viral or bacterial infection and marked by intense headache and fever, sensitivity to light, and muscular rigidity, leading (in severe cases) to convulsions, delirium, and death |
migraine headache | a recurrent throbbing headache that typically affects one side of the head and is often accompanied by nausea and disturbed vision |
multiple scierosis | a chronic, typically progressive disease involving damage to the sheaths of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, whose symptoms may include numbness, impairment of speech and of muscular coordination, blurred vision, and severe fatigue |
OCD | is an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions) |
parkisons disease | a progressive disease of the nervous system marked by tremor, muscular rigidity, and slow, imprecise movement, chiefly affecting middle-aged and elderly people. It is associated with degeneration of the basal ganglia of the brain and a deficiency of the n |
reyes syndrome | a life-threatening metabolic disorder in young children, of uncertain cause but sometimes precipitated by aspirin and involving encephalitis and liver failure |
schizophrenia | a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delus |
shaken baby syndrome | injury to a baby caused by being shaken violently and repeatedly. Shaking can cause swelling of the brain, internal bleeding, detached retinas leading to blindness, mental retardation, and death |
syncope | temporary loss of consciousness caused by a fall in blood pressure |