Category: P

A treatment for pain in which weak electrical currents are applied to acupuncture needles inserted into trigger points or dermatomes near painful body parts. PENS is sometimes used to treat episodic low back pain and other regional pain syndromes. It may be used as an alternative to TENS.  

Any procedure in which catheters are placed within the coronary arteries to study them or open them when they are obstructed. Examples of this are balloon angioplasty, atherectomy, and stent placement.  

A device used for diagnosis by percussion, consisting of a hammer with a rubber or metal head.  

Percussion in which the examiner uses his or her fingers to feel vibrations that are produced within the body, instead of listening for the sounds produced by striking the body.  

To tap parts of the body to aid diagnosis by listening carefully to the sounds they emit.  

Continuous, as in the spread of an inflammation from part to part.  

Touching, as in the spread of an inflammation from one part to an adjacent structure.  

An apparatus used for extraction of a drug with a liquid solvent.  

To allow a liquid to seep through a powdered substance.  

An optical illusion in which a boundary, color, texture, light, or object is seen where one does not actually exist. This defect in visual perception, also known as “filling-in,” commonly is experienced by people with visual field cuts or defects (scotoma).