FORAMINOTOMY – Surgical opening or enlargement of the bony opening traversed by a nerve root as it leaves the spinal canal. Also, forms of local analgesia and anesthesia is often injected into the outer section of the spinal canal. DYSESTHESIA – A condition in which ordinary touch, temperature or movement produces a disagreeable sensation. DOME – The round balloon-like portion of the aneurysm which usually arises from the artery from a smaller portion called the neck of the aneurysm. DIPLOPIA – Double vision, due usually to weakness or paralysis of one or more of the extra-ocular muscles. COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCAN – A diagnostic imaging technique in which a computer reads X-rays to create a three-dimensional map of soft tissue or bone.
In the committee’s reading, OBRA 89 does not use the terms standards of quality, performance measures, and medical terms and definitions criteria as synonyms for practice guidelines. For various practical or technical reasons, some elements of a set of guidelines may have no corresponding review criteria or other practice evaluation tools at all. This seems a possibility in particular for the definition of standards of quality and the provisional definition of performance measures, both of which gave the committee substantial difficulty in their formulation. PERFORMANCE MEASURES are methods or instruments to estimate or monitor the extent to which the actions of a health care practitioner or provider conform to practice guidelines, medical review criteria, or standards of quality.
Health Care Card – These cards provide for medical and/or related services free of charge or at reduced rates to recipients of Commonwealth government pensions or benefits. EMSN – extended Medicare safety net, introduced on 12 March 2004 to cover 80 percent of out-of-pocket costs for Medicare-claimable services provided outside hospital once annual thresholds are reached. Credentialling – The process of assessing and conferring approval on a person’s suitability to provide a defined type of healthcare. Top-of-page accreditation – A process through which residential aged care homes must go in order to be recognized as approved providers under the Aged Care Act 1997. Where a term has a broader general meaning, the definition given refers to its use in the DoH context.
Found only in the synovial joints, articular cartilage helps to absorb shock. Also known as Marie-Strumpell disease or Bechterew’s disease, Ankylosing spondylitis is a type of inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine. AS often starts as a mild pain in the sacroiliac joints, eventually, the vertebrae fuse, resulting in spine stiffness or deformities. The excretory opening is where the gastrointestinal tract ends and exits the body. The rectum sits between the colon and anus and acts as a holding chamber for digestive wastes.
Different phobias include fear of heights, flying, open spaces, social gatherings, animals such as spiders and snakes, etc. Melanoma – A cancer of the body’s cells that contain pigment, mainly affecting the skin. Measles – A highly contagious infection, usually in children, that causes flu-like symptoms, fever, a typical rash, and sometimes serious secondary problems such as brain damage. Hostel – Establishment for people who cannot live independently but who do not need nursing care in a hospital or nursing home. Hostels provide board, lodging, or accommodation and cater mostly to the aged, distressed or disabled. Residents are generally responsible for their own provisions but may be given domestic assistance such as help with meals, laundry, and personal care.
These factors appear sufficient to ensure that the needs of payers, consumer groups, and similar parties will be addressed during the guidelines development stage. Judged in terms of the principles the committee set forth for good definitions, this definition is reasonably succinct, generally consistent with common, professional, and legislative usage, and not tautological. The element of advice or counsel in the committee definition differentiates guidelines from such terms as suggestion, information, and criterion. Practice guidelines assist patients and practitioners in making decisions about health care.
For medical review criteria, the committee definition stresses the evaluation of health care processes and outcomes rather than assistance to practitioners and patients in making decisions. The definition offered here is reasonably consistent with the legislative language and most professional and common usage. As noted earlier in this chapter, the committee’s definition of appropriate care does not require that judgments be made about the cost-effectiveness of particular clinical practices.
CARCINOMA – Cancer, malignant growth of epithelial or gland cells. ARACHNOIDITIS – Inflammation of the arachnoid membrane, most commonly seen around the spinal cord and cauda equina. APOPLEXY – Often used as equivalent to stroke, this is a condition in which there is bleeding into an organ or blood flow to an organ has ceased. APHASIA – Difficulty with or loss of use of language in any of several ways, including reading, writing or speaking, not related to intelligence but to specific lesions in the brain. ANAPLASIA – In the case of a body cell, a reversion to a more primitive condition.
This method of learning is superior to flash cards because of the frequent exposure and testing of your recall. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood away from the heart to the tissues. Hemapheresis is a medical procedure in which the components of blood – RBC, WBC, platelets, and plasma – are separated into layers using a Cell Separator machine.
Our doctors define difficult medical language in easy-to-understand explanations of over 19,000 medical terms. MedTerms online medical dictionary provides quick access to hard-to-spell and often misspelled medical definitions through an extensive alphabetical listing. High-level residential aged care – Residential aged care services are delivered to residents with high levels of dependency. These are approximately equivalent to the services delivered by nursing homes in the past. Heart attack is – Life-threatening emergency that occurs when a vessel supplying blood to the heart muscle is suddenly blocked completely by a blood clot.