>> Hi, everyone.
Welcome to the penguin prof channel.
Today I want to talk about how to approach medical terminology.
What I like to call breaking up which isn't hard to do.
So, the key, of course, is to take big complicated problems
and to break them down into small more manageable pieces.
This is true for language as well as the rest of life.
The problem, of course, as I've mentioned in other videos,
is that in science and medicine we use a lot of terms that come
from Greek and Latin roots.
So, I highly recommend that as you master all
of these pieces you keep a list.
Or better yet get yourself a dictionary
of Greek and Latin roots.
And, you know, you just build your skill set
from the bottom up.
And it gets easier as you go.
I promise.
First thing to understand is that you got to break words
down into their component parts.
And most medical and science terms will have a beginning
which we call a prefix.
A middle which is the root of the word.
And then an ending which is the suffix.
And so usually the prefix and/or the suffixes is a modifier
of the main root of the word.
So, you will probably notice, if you haven't already,
that medical terms are really long
and it's very daunting for a lot of people.
But the truth is most of them are very descriptive
and they mean something.
So, if you can break them down, it's not going to be too bad.
I mean, when you first look at these terms,
you can just say, you know, forget it.
This is ridiculously long.
Or you can just say look, you know, break them down,
and they become more manageable.
So, what I want to do in this video is give you some
of the most common of the puzzle pieces that you will encounter
in medical terminology.
And, hopefully, give you a good place to start.
So, something you'll see every time we talk about bone
and the skeletal system is osteo when we're talking
about cell parts, when we're talking about conditions.
Things like this slide shows osteoarthritis.
Don't let this happen to you by the way.
Take care of your joints.
You're going to see this osteo somewhere in there.
Osteocyte, in fact, is the name of a bone cell.
When you see myo or sarco, that refers to muscle.
All different types of cell structures
within muscle you're going to see with myo or sarco.
For example, you'll see the sarcomere.
You'll see the sarcoplasmic reticulum.
You will see myo fibers or myofibrils.
All of those things relates to muscle.
Muscle has a lot of really specialized structures.
And almost all of them you're going to see with myo
or sarco usually in the prefix.
This one you probably know already.
Neuro refers to nerves.
A neuron is a nerve cell which is what you're looking at here.
But there's a lot of other terms,
of course, that use that root.
So, you always know you're going
to be talking about nerves there.
When you see derm, that refers to the skin.
You probably know a lot of these terms already.
The epidermis which is this section up here at the top.
Epi just means on top.
There are five layers of the epidermis.
And then beneath the epidermis is the dermis.
The dermal layer which is what you're seeing down here.
So, derm you probably have heard of terms
like dermatitis for example.
Just inflammation of the skin.
A dermatologist.
Things like that all relating to the skin.
Blood vessels you're going to often see the term angio.
And you've, hopefully, heard of angioplasty
which is basically the insertion of a --
of a little catheter and a balloon which is inflated
in order to create space inside an occluded vessel.
The veins we have veno or phlebo like a phlebotomist.
Phlebotomist is someone
who draws blood for their profession.
We see that a lot.
Most people know cardio and the heart.
We really don't know why
when you suffer emotional distress your heart aches.
It's kind of a mystery of modern medicine.
I can tell you that Tylenol does not help.
Things relating to the nose you'll often see rhino
like rhinoplasty which is a nose job.
And, of course, that's the root for the rhinoceros so named
because of not so much it's big nose but big horns.
This term from tympany refers to things
like the tympanic membrane which is the ear drum.
The tympany that's the kettle drum in an orchestra.
And, of course, the drum vibrates
and creates a particular pitch.
And similarly when sound waves strike the tympanic membrane
and cause it to vibrate that will cause the ear ossicles
to vibrate and set up a whole chain of events which leads
to your ability to hear.
This one you probably don't know.
But neph, n-e-p-h, relates to the kidney.
The functional unit of the kidney is the nephron.
This is the actual nephron here.
That is how the kidney is able to filter blood
and produce a filtrate which will eventually be urine.
So, here's some more.
Some of these you may know.
They're all pretty common.
The skull.
The skull, itself, actually is referred to as the cranium.
You've probably heard of that.
The eye you'll see things like ophthalmologist.
You'll see an ocular.
The ear is oto, o-t-o.
Otoliths. Those are the tiny little bones in the ear.
They're actually the smallest bones in the body
as I was mentioning earlier.
Blood clot.
You've probably heard of a thrombosis.
That's fairly commonly used.
Liver. You see hepato a lot.
Liver cells are called hepatocytes.
You may have heard of hepatitis which is a disease of the liver.
Breast actually you're going to see things like mammary glands.
I'm sure you've heard of mammography.
Large intestine we use colo as in the colon
for the large intestine itself.
But you'll see it in other things like a colonoscopy.
Gastro for the stomach.
Ileo for the small intestine.
Thoraco for the chest.
You -- I'm sure -- heard of things like the thoracic wall.
The thorax.
All the same root.
And in the lung, pneumo or pleuro.
I'm sure you've heard of pneumonia.
Pleuro you'll see things like pleurisy relating
to the inflammation of lung membranes.
A lot of terms.
Prefixes, especially, relate to size.
Size matters, of course.
Macro which means large.
Micro which means small.
You probably know those.
Megalo or megaly means large or enlarged.
Rates. This is really important to take note because a lot
of these prefixes look very much the same
but they mean dramatically different things.
So, for example, if your patient is hyperthyroidic [phonetic],
it means that their thyroid is overactive.
If they are hypothyroidic [phonetic],
it means the thyroid is not as active as it should be.
So, the -- the main part of the word looks the same
but if you change that prefix it means a completely
different thing.
Tachy and brady referring to rates as well often
in reference to the heart.
So, tachycardia, for example,
is a resting heart rate that is too fast.
Bradycardia, resting heart rate that is slow.
Colors. We have a lot of prefixes relating to color.
Chlorophyll, for example, like in plants is green.
Leuk is white.
You see that in leukocytes.
Red, erythro.
Erythrocytes, red blood cells.
And cyan which is the color blue like erythrocyanan [phonetic].
Cyanobacteria you may seen in general biology.
Those are the blue green algae.
Oh, my goodness.
Spend some time with these directional terms --
directional prefixes because they will mess you up.
Sometimes I swear these little guys are what drive
people crazy.
Look at this for example.
So, endo or intra both mean within.
But look at this difference.
Intra versus inter which means between.
So, for example, I would say intracellular
and that means within a single cell.
Right? But what if I say intercellular?
So, that means between cells.
It sounds like a very small difference
but it means a dramatically different idea.
So, most people would think about perhaps intercourse.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Which is between people.
There -- there is no such thing
as intracourse [phonetic] far as I know.
Extra refers to outside.
You certainly know things like extraterrestrial.
Peri. Peri means around.
So, when we talk about something that is around a structure.
Peritoneum for example.
That is fairly commonly used to mean around something.
It could even be -- it could be a cell.
It could be a whole sheet of tissue.
It could be around an organ.
The pericardium, for example,
is a membrane surrounding the entire heart.
And then trans.
That means across.
So, this could be something like a protein that actually goes
across a cell membrane.
A transmembrane protein.
Or you could be using it to discuss an actual process.
You're going to see that as well.
But these are little guys that really make a big difference.
Test and procedures.
These get used a lot.
And it's really helpful to know these
because you'll see them over and over again.
Echo as in echocardiogram.
Using ultrasonic waves.
Electro I'm sure you know.
Ectomy is the removal.
A gram is a picture.
You can talk about a graph.
The process of making an image.
Making a cut.
Using an instrument for viewing or creating and opening.
These are very common.
And finally some problems.
Dys meaning not working properly.
Mal as a prefix meaning bad.
The term malady comes from this.
Malaria was a disease that was thought
to be spread through the air.
So, literally malaria means bad air.
We now know, of course, it's not caused by the air.
Emia is referring to some sort of blood condition.
And itis. Anything with itis is an inflammation.
And osis. That's just a very, very broadly used term
for a condition or disease as is the suffix pathy.
For example, neuropathy is a very broad term for a disease
of the nervous system.
So, when you put it all together,
we can take some big complicated words and break them down.
So, here is a three-parter for you.
Hypercholesterolemia.
So, when you break it down,
you can see that hyper which means elevated.
This refers to, of course, cholesterol.
And emia this is referring to a condition in the blood.
It's elevated blood cholesterol.
Dermatitis.
I think I gave that one away earlier.
Derm referring to the skin.
And that itis is the inflammation.
So, that's just an inflammation of the skin.
A colostomy referring to the colon.
And then an actual opening in the colon.
So, some things for you guys to try on your own.
There's plenty of fun things to look at.
I think that you'll find that if you just kind of get
over the initial panic of, wow, these words are long
and foreign you just got to keep going.
Keep -- keep reading.
Keep exposing yourself to them.
And trust me.
It gets easier.
As always, I want to thank you
for visiting the penguin prof channel.
Please comment, read, and subscribe.
Join us on the Facebook page and follow on Twitter.
Good luck.