Category: A

A disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by the biting reduviid bug. It is characterized by fever, lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, and facial edema. Chronic cases may be mild or asymptomatic, or may be accompanied by myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, megaesophagus, megacolon, or death.  

A concave positioning device attached to a wheelchair armrest that positions the arm and prevents lateral leaning, thus encouraging postural alignment.  

A unilateral neuralgia in the mandible, tongue, and ear. The causes are mandibular nerve lesions, deafness on the same side due to eustachian tube lesions, and damage to the levator palatini muscle resulting in kinesthesia of the soft palate.  

A trigger point that is painful when the involved muscle is at rest. Palpation will reproduce the patient’s symptoms.  

The space bounded by the middle line of the neck, the anterior border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and a line running along the lower border of the mandible and continued to the mastoid process of the temporal bone.  

The visible tremor exhibited by alcoholics.  

An assessment tool used to predict the likelihood that an injured patient will survive after serious trauma. It includes the patient’s age; whether the trauma was blunt or penetrating; the Glascow Coma Score; and the initial blood pressure and respiratory rate.  

The active movement of intracellular molecules and structures within the axon. Anterograde axonal transport supplies the axon and its terminal with proteins and membranous elements fabricated in the cell body. Retrograde axonal transport moves molecules (including some picked up from outside the terminal) from the end of the axon back to the cell body.  

Transplantation of tissue from one part to another part of the same body.  

The harvesting and preservation of a patient’s own blood-forming cells, followed by their eventual reintroduction into a patient. The procedure may be used to treat a variety of cancers and blood disorders. Contemporary practice is to mobilize stem cells into the blood stream with growth factors, and then to collect and filter the blood by…