Wilshire Hospice News
Patient Diagnosis and Symptom Definitions
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Afebrile: No fever.
ALS: Amyotropic lateral sclerosis; Lou Gehrig’s disease; a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement.
CAD: A narrowing of the inside diameter of arteries that supply the heart with blood which interferes with the blood supply to the heart muscle.
CHF: Congestive heart failure; a syndrome marked by weakness, edema and shortness of breath, due to the inability of the heart to circulate the blood adequately to the lungs and other tissues.
COPD: Chronic airway obstruction; emphysema; a progressive lung disease process characterized by difficulty breathing, wheezing, and a chronic cough. Complications may include bronchitis, pneumonia and lung cancer.
Coronary atherosclerosis: Also known as arteriosclerotic vascular disease or ASVD; the condition in which an artery wall thickens as the result of a build-up of fatty materials such as cholesterol.
CVA: Stroke; a sudden loss of consciousness resulting when the rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel leads to oxygen lack in the brain.
Debility: Infirmity; the state of being weak in health or body, a loss of strength, especially from old age.
Dementia: A progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Areas particularly affected include memory, attention, judgment, language and problem solving.
Diabetes: The inability of the body to produce, or the inability to metabolize, the human hormone insulin; Diabetes insipidus, usually a disorder of the pituitary gland, leading to a form of type II diabetes.
Dysphagia: Difficulty in swallowing.
Dyspnea: Difficult or labored respiration.
Edema: Swelling caused by an excess of fluid in the body tissues.
Essential hypertension: Persistent and pathological high blood pressure for which no specific cause can be found.
Foley/SP catheter status: A Foley catheter is a tube inserted into the urinary bladder for drainage of urine. The urine drains through the tube and collects into a plastic bag.
Malignant neoplasm: Cancer; a tumor that is malignant and tends to spread to other parts of the body.
Neurogenic bladder: Loss of nerve supply to the bladder resulting in an inability to voluntarily control the bladder.
Palliative performance scale: Measures the functional status of a patient and assigns a Palliative Performance Value; serves as a communication tool for quickly describing a patient's current functional level.
Parkinson's disease (paralysis agitans): A degenerative disorder of the central nervous system characterized by tremor and impaired muscular coordination.
Peripheral neuropathy: Damage to nerves of the peripheral nervous system, which may be caused either by diseases of the nerve or from the side-effects of systemic illness. Frequently the cause of a neuropathy cannot be identified and it is designated idiopathic.
Reisberg FAST Score: The Functional Assessment Staging (FAST) scale, which allows professionals and caregivers to chart the decline of people with Alzheimer's disease. The FAST scale has 16 stages and sub-stages.
