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Dictionary of Medical Terms

Neurological terms

  • Abasia - the inability to walk.
  • Acalculia - loss of the ability to perform simple calculations, typically resulting from disease or injury of the parietal lobe of the brain.
  • Acatagraphia - incorrect placement of the words when writing.
  • Acataphasia - violation of the correct arrangement of words during a conversation.
  • Acauria - molestation, obsession, importunity.
  • Accomodation (accomodatio) - the ability of the eye to change the focal length by contracting and relaxing the ciliary muscle of the eyeball.
  • Acheirokinesis - poverty movements, and lack of swinging of the arms when walking.
  • Acoasma - auditory hallucinations in the form of noise, thunder, ringing, etc.
  • Acrodynia - pain in the extremities (erythredema, trophodermatoneurosis, Selter's disease and other synonyms)
  • Acromegaly - excessive disproportionate enlargement of the limbs, jaws, lips, tongue and other parts of the body; abnormal growth of the hands, feet, and face, caused by overproduction of growth hormone by the pituitary gland.
  • Acroparesthesia - a violation of sensitivity in the distal parts of the extremities (attacks of tingling sensations, cold, running goosebumps, etc.).
  • Acusmatampesia (асusmаtаmnеsis) - inability to remember words.
  • Adduction (adductio) - the movement of a limb or other part towards the midline of the body or towards another part.
  • Adhesion (adllaesio) - an abnormal adhering of surfaces due to inflammation or injury.
  • Adiadochokinesis - violation of the correct alternation of opposite movements (flexion and extension, supination and pronation).
  • Affect (affectus) - emotional excitement, passion, excitement with the loss of volitional control.
  • Agenesis - the congenital absence or underdevelopment of an organ (part of it) or part of the body (aplasia).
  • Ageusia - lack of taste sensations.
  • Agnosia - inability to interpret sensations and hence to recognize things, typically as a result of brain damage.
  • Agraphia - inability to write, as a language disorder resulting from brain damage.
  • Akinesia - the absence of voluntary movements; loss or impairment of the power of voluntary movement.
  • Alalia - motor and sensory speech disorders in children.
  • Alexia - loss of the ability to read; inability to recognize or read written words or letters, typically as a result of brain damage.
  • Allochiria - perception of a sensation at a symmetrical point in the other half of the body.
  • Alteration (alteratio) - changes in the structure of cells, tissues and organs, accompanied by a violation of their vital activity.
  • Ambivalence (ambivalentio) - the opposite assessment of the same phenomenon or fact; the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.
  • Amentia - nonsense, confusion of consciousness with hallucinations; amentia is a severe congenital mental disability.
  • Amnesia - a partial or total loss or weakening of memory.
  • Analgesia - loss of pain sensitivity, pain relief (see Therapeutic injections); the inability to feel pain.
  • Anaplasia - is a change in the biological properties of cells, a decrease in their differentiation and a weakening of their relationships in the body; the loss of the mature or specialized features of a cell or tissue, as in malignant tumors.
  • Anarthria - impaired speech, modulation of sounds.
  • Anorexia Nervosa (anorexia) - lack of appetite; lack or loss of appetite for food (as a medical condition).
  • Anosognosia - denial or lack of consciousness of one's physical defect.
  • Apathy (apathia) - indifference, indifference, lack of emotions and interests; lack of enthusiasm, or concern.
  • Aphasia (aphasia) - impaired perception and reproduction of speech; inability (or impaired ability) to understand or produce speech, as a result of brain damage.
  • Aphonia - the absence or soundlessness of the voice; inability to speak through disease of or damage to the larynx or mouth.
  • Apituitarism (apituitarisis) - the absence of a cerebral appendage of the pituitary gland; the lack of a pituitary, or the loss of its function.
  • Apoplexy (apoplexia) - sudden stroke, paralysis (cerebral hemorrhage); unconsciousness or incapacity resulting from a cerebral haemorrhage or stroke.
  • Apopsychia - a fainting state.
  • Apraxia - loss of skills and appropriate habitual actions; inability to perform particular purposive actions, as a result of brain damage.
  • Arthrogryposis - multiple congenital contracture limb joints.
  • Astasia (asthasia) - loss of balance and ability to stand.
  • Astereognosis - tactile (touch) agnosia. Asthenia (asthenia) - physical and mental weakness or exhaustion; abnormal physical weakness or lack of energy.
  • Asymbolia - is a violation of perception and understanding of conventional symbols and signs (facial expressions, gestures, writing, etc.).
  • Asynergia - the inability to combine simple movements in the motor act, the disappearance friendly movements.
  • Ataxia - disorder of coherence and coordination of voluntary movements; the loss of full control of bodily movements.
  • Athetosis - worm-like involuntary movements (muscle contractions) mainly of the fingers and toes; a condition in which abnormal muscle contraction causes involuntary writhing movements; it affects some people with cerebral palsy, impairing speech and use of the hands.
  • Atimia (athymia) - despondency, gloomy mood.
  • Aura - a precursor to an epileptic seizure; a warning sensation experienced before an attack of epilepsy or migraine.
  • Autism (autismus) - immersion in oneself and isolation from the outside world; a developmental disorder of variable severity that is characterized by difficulty in social interaction and communication and by restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behavior.
  • Autopoagnosia - impaired orientation in your own body.

  • Batianesthesia (battianaesthesia) - loss of muscular-articular (deep types of sensitivity) feelings.
  • Blepharospasm (blepharospasmus) - convulsions of the circular muscle of the eye; involuntary tight closure of the eyelids.
  • Brachycephaly (brachykephalia) - short-headedness or a special shape of the head with a relatively weak development of the longitudinal diameter and a large diameter.
  • Bradykinesia - slowing down the pace of any type of movement: walking - bradybasia, actions - bradypraxia, speech - bradyphasia, mental processes - bradyphrenia, etc.

  • Catalepsy - numbness and freezing in a certain position, waxy flexibility; a medical condition characterized by a trance or seizure with a loss of sensation and consciousness accompanied by rigidity of the body.
  • Cataplexy (cataplexia) - a sudden drop in muscle tone; a medical condition in which strong emotion or laughter causes a person to suffer sudden physical collapse though remaining conscious.
  • Catatonia (catatonia) is a violation of voluntary movements, a kind of muscle contraction in schizophrenia; a state of immobility and stupor; abnormality of movement and behaviour arising from a disturbed mental state (typically schizophrenia). It may involve repetitive or purposeless overactivity, or catalepsy, resistance to passive movement, and negativism.
  • Confabulation (сonfаbulatio) - wishful thinking, fiction to fill in the gaps in memory.
  • Convergence - movement of the eyes towards each other, in which the gaze will focus on the bridge of the nose.
  • Coprolalia - the desire to shout swear words; the involuntary and repetitive use of obscene language, as a symptom of mental illness or organic brain disease.
  • Cryptomnesia - deceptions of memory, when they do not distinguish someone else's, read or heard in memories from their own data.

  • Dactylalgia (dactilalgia) - pain in the fingers.
  • 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.
  • Demissia (demissia) - despondency, discouragement.
  • Dolichocephaly (dolichocephalia) - long head, the predominance of the longitudinal diameter of the cerebral skull over the transverse.
  • Dormitation (dormitatio) - drowsiness.
  • Dysaesthesia - a perverted perception of irritations (touch is felt as pain, cold as warmth, etc.); an abnormal unpleasant sensation felt when touched, caused by damage to peripheral nerves.
  • Dysarthria - blurred speech; difficult or unclear articulation of speech that is otherwise linguistically normal.
  • Dysgeusia - a subjective disorder of taste (perversion of it).
  • Dysmnesia - memory disorder (combination of weakening of the ability to memorize with impairment of the functions of preserving and reproducing memory material).
  • Dysostosis - a violation of the development of the skeletal system.
  • Dysphoria - mood instability; a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life.
  • Dysplasia - an abnormal physique; the abnormal growth or development of a tissue or organ;
  • Dysthymia – depression; persistent mild depression.

Ear Click - see Palatal Myoclonus; Tinnitus

"Face-Hand Test" - see “Arm Drop”

  • Gargoilism (gаrgouilles) - a bizarre face, dwarf growth, large head, mental retardation.
  • Glossodynia - neuralgia of the tongue.
  • Gonocrania - impotence, impotence.

  • Hemianesthesia - impaired sensitivity in one half of the body.
  • Hemianopsia - half loss of the visual field; blindness over half the field of vision.
  • Hemiballismus - rough in the form of a throw hyperkinesis of the limbs of one side.
  • Hemiparesis - incomplete paralysis of half of the body; another term for hemiplegia.
  • Hemiplegia (hemiplegia) - paralysis (loss of movement) of half of the body; paralysis of one side of the body Hemiprasaplegia (hemiprasaplegia) - paralysis of half of the face.
  • Herpes (zoster, simplex) - a virus that infects the membranes of the nerve root and manifests itself in the form of a rash of vesicles with soreness (see Neuralgia); any of a group of virus diseases caused by herpesviruses, affecting the skin (often with blisters) or the nervous system.
  • Hirsutism (hyrsutismus) - early development with disorders in the genital area, obesity and hypertrichosis in women; abnormal growth of hair on a woman's face and body.
  • Hyperesthesia - increased painful skin sensitivity; excessive physical sensitivity, especially of the skin.
  • Hyperkinesis - various involuntary movements; muscle spasm; a disorder of children marked by hyperactivity and inability to concentrate.
  • Hyperpathy (hyperpathia) - perversion of sensitivity.
  • Hypersomnia (huregsamnia) - attacks of pathological drowsiness.
  • Hypesthesia (hypaesthesia) - a decrease in sensitivity; a diminished capacity for physical sensation, especially of the skin.
  • Hypochondria - low mood, excessive fixation and exaggeration of their painful sensations; abnormal chronic anxiety about one's health.
  • Hypokinesia - insufficient physical activity, poor movement.
  • Hypomnesia - weakening of memory.
  • Hysteria - a kind of neurosis; exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement; an old-fashioned term for a psychological disorder characterized by conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization) or a change in self-awareness (such as a fugue state or selective amnesia).

  • Idiotia - complete mental underdevelopment.
  • Imbecility (imbесillitаs) - average degree (between idiot and debility) mental retardation. Insanity - extreme physical and mental (moral) depletion or impotence; the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness; extreme foolishness or irrationality.
  • Ischemia - a decrease in the volume of blood flow in organs or tissues of a living organism (see stroke, TIA); an inadequate blood supply to an organ or part of the body, especially the heart muscles.

  • Lagophthalmus - incomplete closure of the palpebral fissure.
  • Lalopathy - difficulty speaking.
  • Logoclonus - repetition of a sound or syllable at the end of a word (spasm of speech muscles).
  • Logorrhoea – verbosity; a tendency to extreme loquacity.

  • Macroheilia - an increase in the size of the lips.
  • Mania - painful attraction, madness, passion; mental illness marked by periods of great excitement or euphoria, delusions, and overactivity; an excessive enthusiasm or desire; an obsession.
  • Marasmus - extreme physical and mental (moral) exhaustion or impotence; undernourishment causing a child's weight to be significantly low for their age.
  • Melancholy - depressed mental and emotional sphere; a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.
  • Metaplasia - is a persistent change in the type of tissue caused by a change in its functional and morphological differentiation under the influence of various stimuli; abnormal change in the nature of a tissue.
  • Minimally invasive - a method of diagnosis and surgical treatment with the minimum amount of trauma inflicted.
  • Mogiagraphy - writing spasm.
  • Monoplegia - paralysis of the limb; paralysis restricted to one limb or region of the body.
  • Mutism - speechlessness in mental illnesses; inability to speak, typically as a result of congenital deafness or brain damage; unwillingness or refusal to speak, arising from psychological causes such as depression or trauma.
  • Myoclonus - fast muscle twitching; spasmodic jerky contraction of groups of muscles.

  • Narcolepsy (nagsolesia) - bouts of drowsiness at any time of the day; neurological disorder that affects your ability to wake and sleep.
  • Neurology - is a branch of medicine that studies the structure and function of the nervous system in health and disease, the patterns of its development.
  • Neuropathy - is damage or dysfunction of one or more nerves that typically results in numbness, tingling, muscle weakness and pain in the affected area.
  • Neurosurgery - is a branch of medicine that studies nervous diseases, the treatment of which is carried out mainly by surgical methods.
  • Nyctophobia - fear of the dark.
  • Nystagmus - involuntary rapid rhythmic movements of the eyeballs; a vision condition in which the eyes make repetitive, uncontrolled movements.

  • Oligokinesia - poverty of movement.
  • Oligophasia - a low use of words due to memory loss.
  • Ophthalmoplegia - loss of the function of the oculomotor muscles; paralysis or weakness of the eye muscles.
  • Osteochondrosis - is a group of predominantly inflammatory diseases of the subchondral region of the long bones and apophyses of the short bones of the skeleton, resulting from a specific or (less often) nonspecific infection of the bones and joints; a self-limiting developmental derangement of normal bone growth, primarily involving the centers of ossification in the epiphysis.
  • Osteoporosis - is a rarefaction of the cancellous and cortical layers of the bone due to partial resorption of the bone substance; a health condition that weakens bones, making them fragile and more likely to break.

  • Palilalia - constant repetition of one word or phrase; repetition of the speaker's words or phrases, often for a varying number of repeats.
  • Parageusia - a perversion of taste.
  • Parakinesis - involuntary complexly coordinated motor acts in the form of natural movements; incorporation of a choreic or involuntary movement into a voluntary one.
  • Paralysis, plegia - absence of voluntary movements; loss of muscle function in part of your body.
  • Paramnesia - memory disorder with inability to distinguish actual from fiction; a condition or phenomenon involving distorted memory or confusions of fact and fantasy, such as confabulation or déjà vu.
  • Paraphasia - distortion of words and phrases; speech disturbance resulting from brain damage in which words are jumbled and sentences meaningless.
  • Paresis - is a weakening of voluntary muscle movements; a condition of muscular weakness caused by nerve damage or disease; partial paralysis.
  • Paresthesia - false sensations (numbness, tingling, insect crawling, etc.); an abnormal sensation, typically tingling or pricking (‘pins and needles’), caused chiefly by pressure on or damage to peripheral nerves.
  • Parosmia - olfactory hallucinations; abnormality in the sense of smell.
  • Perseveration - repetition of what has been said.
  • Perversion - distortion or corruption of the original course, meaning, or state of something; sexual behavior that is considered abnormal and unacceptable.
  • Poikilothymia - long cycles of mood swings.
  • Porencephaly (porencephalia) - one of the malformations of the brain; rare congenital disorder that results in cystic degeneration and encephalomalacia and the formation of porencephalic cysts.
  • Progeria - premature aging; a rare syndrome in children characterized by physical symptoms suggestive of premature old age.
  • Propulsion - tendency to fall forward; the action of driving or pushing forwards.
  • Prosopalgia - pain in the face; severe, paroxysmal bursts of pain in one or more branches of the trigeminal nerve. - psychological assistance - psychological correction of the psyche of people with mental disorders.
  • Psychotherapy - is a complex therapeutic effect on emotions, judgments and self-awareness of a person with the aim of: Ptyalismus - abnormal proliferation of saliva; salivation.
  • Pyknolepsy - frequent short-term seizures; refers to a syndrome of typical absence seizures (both simple and complex) in otherwise normal, prepubertal children older than about 3 to 5 years.

  • Receptor - special sensitive formations that perceive and transform stimuli from the external or internal environment of the body and transmit information about the acting agent to the nervous system; an organ or cell able to respond to light, heat, or other external stimulus and transmit a signal to a sensory nerve.
  • Reflex - the body's reactions caused by the central nervous system when the receptors are irritated by agents of the internal or external environment; an action that is performed without conscious thought as a response to a stimulus.
  • Regeneration - is the restoration of lost or damaged organs and tissues by the body, as well as the restoration of the whole organism from its parts.
  • Retention (retentio) – delay; the continued possession, use, or control of something.
  • Rigidity - stiffness, numbness, tension; inability to be to bent or be forced out of shape.

  • Senestopathy - is a violation of sensitivity in the form of vague, diffuse and unpleasant sensations (contraction, transfusion, tingling, crawling under the skin, etc.); depressing, uncomfortable sensation in the body, which can be localized either in the internal organs or on the surface of the body.
  • Somnambulism – sleepwalking or noctambulism, is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness.
  • Stereognosis - the impossibility of identifying objects by touch; the mental perception of depth or three-dimensionality by the senses, usually in reference to the ability to perceive the form of solid objects by touch.
  • Symptom - sign of the disease; a physical or mental feature which is regarded as indicating a condition of disease, particularly such a feature that is apparent to the patient.
  • Syndactyly - congenital fusion of the fingers; condition of having some or all of the fingers or toes wholly or partly united, either naturally (as in web-footed animals) or as a malformation.
  • Syndrome - a certain combination of signs of the disease (see Symptom), due to a single beginning; a group of symptoms which consistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms; a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviour.
  • Synergy - friendly actions; the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
  • Synesthesia - irradiation of irritation to the opposite side in the same dermatome; the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
  • Synkinesia - friendly movements; voluntary muscle movement causes the simultaneous involuntary contraction of other muscles.

  • Torticollis - a condition in which the head becomes persistently turned to one side, often associated with painful muscle spasms.
  • Tremor - involuntary vibrational movements of the whole body or its individual parts; a rhythmic shaking movement in one or more parts of your body.
  • Trismus (trismus) - tonic spasm of the chewing muscles; spasm of the jaw muscles, causing the mouth to remain tightly closed, typically as a symptom of tetanus.

  • Undulation (undulatio) - the action of moving smoothly up and down.

  • Verbigeration (verbigeratia) - incoherent heap of one word on another.
  • Vertigo – dizziness, giddiness; a sensation of whirling and loss of balance, associated particularly with looking down from a great height, or caused by disease affecting the inner ear or the vestibular nerve.