This free medical transcription course post explains 8 important medical terms that are used on a daily basis when processing live transcription files as a daily job.
1. Deglutition: The process of swallowing food materials is known as deglutition.
2. Dysphagia: An abnormal condition of difficulty of swallowing of food stuffs by a person.
3. Nasal Regurgitation: Back flow of food material from the stomach to the nose.
4. Bolus: Food mixed with salivary juice while chewing food.
5. Chyme: Partially digested food material inside the mouth is called chyme.
6. Achalasia Cardia: Inability of lower esophageal sphincter to relax.
7. Orifice: Opening.
8. Pneumonitis: Inflammation of the walls of the air sacs or alveoli in the lungs.
In the next post, we will study about important 20 gastrointestinal medical terms. To go to the prior post CLICK here.
We have already learnt about normal vital signs, that are taken into consideration while diagnosing a patient's normal physical condition to come into some diagnostic conclusions during physical examination. Normally, vital signs are temperature, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and heart rate.
Apart from these normal vital signs, secondarily some vital signs are also taken into consideration are menstrual cycle, Glasgow Coma Scale, pulse oximetry, and blood glucose levels. The knowledge of these secondary vital signs are essential while concluding some advanced diagnostics. We will see about the fifth vital signs one by one.
1. Glasgow Coma Scale or GCS: It is a neurological measure of recording a conscious state of a patient in relation to the assessment of the disease condition. The scores are the lowest of 3 and the maximum of 14 to 15. In common, GCS is calculated in a patient after a head injury to measure the score of consciousness level.
2. Pain: Pain is a response stimuli of damage intensity of a patient's physiological or psychological trauma. The more intense the trauma level, the more intense pain response from a patient. So, this is taken as one of the main fifth vital sign to diagnose the trauma level or intensity of a disease.
3. Menstrual cycle: This fifth vital sign is used to detect the probability of pregnancy in a female patient. The symptoms upon which a female gets a menstrual cycle are taken into consideration before diagnosing a disease.
4. Pulse oximetry: This is nothing, but measuring a patient's oxygen saturation level and the maximum is 100%. There are 2 types of blood saturati
ons, such as peripheral blood saturation in short SpO2, and arterial oxygen saturation or SaO2. Generally, A wrist or earlobe mounted remote sensor pulse oximeter with plethysmograph may be used to measure pulse oximety levels.
5. Blood glucose level: Sugar test to identify a patient's blood glucose level is another important fifth vital sign that will reveal how the patient's glucose is converted to energy in the blood stream. High or low blood sugars are very well understood based on their consequences in the body.
In this post, we will study about another important aspect in medical science and knowing about them is very crucial and they are vital signs. In every job we encounter, we will encounter vital signs details without a miss. Vital Signs are nothing, but clinical measurements of that are helpful in assuring that human body is in normal state of health.
What are the 4 clinical measurements ?
The four clinical measurements of general health state of a patient are:
1. Heart rate or pulse rate or pulse.
2. Body temperature.
3. Respiratory rate.
4. Blood pressure.
We will see about one by one now.
1. Heart rate or pulse rate or pulse:
Normally, in resting condition, a person's heart rate or pulse is estimated to be around 60 beats to 100 beats in a minute. In fact, the lesser the heart rate, the better heart of health would be. For example, a well-trained sportsperson heart would be around 40 beats to 45 beats a minute.
2. Body Temperature:
Normal body temperature is also known as normothermia or normothermic condition or euthermia. Normal temperature standard is 36.5 to 37.5 degrees Celsius or 97.7 to 99.5 Fahrenheit. The temperature above these levels are considered to be fever. The excessive heat condition is called medically as hyperpyrexia.
3. Respiratory Rate:
Generally, a person may breathe between 12 to 20 breaths per minute, but infants from birth to about 6 weeks of their life normally breathe about 30 to 40 times. A person's respiratory rate may be higher in abnormal conditions such as fever or other illnesses.
4. Blood Pressure:
Blood pressure is a measurement of amount of blood flows on the walls of the heart. Normal blood pressure standard is 120/80 for adults. High blood pressure if found needs to be controlled to maintain the normalcy of heart and blood vessels, otherwise, it may lead to any threat to the life of a patient.
In the next post, we will study about another term in medical science.
As a medical transcription trainees, you all must know about an important medical term, you would often encounter in files is atrial fibrillation. This is an important medical term related to cardiovascular system i.e. heart and blood vessels. Then, what is atrial fibrillation? We will see the meaning and definition of atrial fibrillation below.
We all know that heart is felt in our body by its beat sounds defined as lub dub sounds while doctors hear through a stethoscope. There are normal and abnormal heart beats can be understood by the professionals and so they can lead the exam with an Electrocardiograph scan to understand more about beats and electrical stimulated condition inside the heart.
So, an ECG or electrocardiograph scan report will tell more about the kind of heart beats and their characteristic features and consequences inside the heart currently and in the near future. Atrial fibrillation is nothing, but an irregular and also often a rapid heart rate related condition, which will lead to poor blood flow to the heart. Atrial fibrillation happens because of the disorganized electric signals inside the heart.
Atrial fibrillation is termed in short in medical field as AFib or AF. Atrial fibrillation may be felt as a fluttering sensation in the chest or sometimes we don't see any symptoms too.
What happens while AFib?
Generally, atria are 2 chambers above the heart that should beat normally to pass the blood to the lower 2 chambers of ventricles, but in AFib or atrial fibrillation, beat happens irregularly, and so blood flow to the downward ventricles from the upper atria happen abnormally.
What is the seriousness of AFib?
If incidentally, a patient with any clots in the blood stream, the blood may enter abnormally inside the brain to make a STROKE...!, but this risk is studied in only 15 to 20 percentage of people only. Atrial fibrillation is treated by giving blood thinners and so any clot blockage and more blood flow to the brain is controlled.
In the next post, we will see about another important cardiovascular term and its meaning. Ok. To move to the home page from here please CLICK HERE.
1. The primary objective of studying medical language is UNDERSTANDING a complex term to be simply understood and make the student easier to understand it. If a student cannot understand the term, they may want to remember it only by mugging up the medical terms, which is hard.
2. A medical term may be a simple one or may one complicated term, either needs to be understood to understand the medical science by a student or a reader.
3. Each medical term is organized into parts such that each part of the term can be used with other words to give different meanings. Eg. aden/o is a prefix that means gland, and it can be used with other prefix words to give different meaning related to a gland. For example, adenoma means mass of the gland. Adenitis is inflammation of a gland. Understand.
4. In this way, any term need not to be memorized, anyone who can understand the meaning changes with variations can never forget any medical term that they studied once by understanding with meanings.
5. Though some medical terms like ilium and ileum have the same pronounciations, they differ in meanings. One student of medical language must be very careful about these variations with sameness.
In the next lesson, we will see more medical terms with more examples. Home Page.
