Medical Dictionary Definitions A-Z List
Medical Dictionary Definitions A - Z - «D»:
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Delirium
Delirium: A sudden state of severe confusion and rapid changes in brain function, sometimes associated with hallucinations and hyperactivity, in which the patient is inaccessible to normal contact.
Symptoms may include inability to concentrate and disorganized thinking evidenced by rambling, irrele...
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Delirium tremens
Delirium tremens: A neurological symptom of
alcohol withdrawal seen in chronic alcoholism, with
includes symptoms of psychosis. These may include
uncontrollable trembling, hallucinations, severe anxiety,
sweating, and sudden feelings of terror. Delirium tremens
can be both frightening and, in...
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Delivery, breech
Delivery, breech: Delivery in which the buttocks
present before the head....
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Delivery, footling
Delivery, footling: There are single-footling or double-footling
deliveries depending upon whether the presenting part of the baby at delivery is just one
foot or both feet....
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Delivery, vertex
Delivery, vertex: In a vertex delivery, the top of the baby's
head comes first. The vertex here refers to the top of the head. The word
"vertex" in Latin means a "whirlpool, whirlwind, top of the mountain, or
the top of the head." Why "top of the head"? Because the hairs on the top
of the head often...
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della Robbia
della Robbia: The infant in swaddling, today the symbol of pediatrics, sculpted by the Florentine artist Andrea della Robbia (1437-1528)....
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Delta cell, pancreatic
Delta cell, pancreatic: A type of cell in the
pancreas (the organ of the
digestive system located behind the stomach). Within the
pancreas, the delta
cells are located in areas called the islets of Langerhans.
The delta cells
make somatostatin, a hormone that inhibits the release of
numerous ho...
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Delta-storage pool disease
Delta-storage pool disease: See: Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome....
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Deltoid
Deltoid: An adjective and a noun.
Adjective: In the shape of delta, the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet. A capital delta is a triangle. Hence, deltoid means triangular in configuration.
Noun: The large muscle, roughly triangular in shape,
that stretches from the clavicle (collarbone) to the hum...
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Delusion
Delusion: A false personal belief that is not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and is not explained by a person's usual cultural and religious concepts (so that, for example, it is not an article of faith). A delusion may be firmly maintained in the face of incontrovertible evidence that ...
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Delusional jealousy
Delusional jealousy: See: Othello syndrome....
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Delusional parasitosis
Delusional parasitosis: A mistaken belief that one is infested by parasites such as mites, lice, fleas, spiders, worms, or other organisms. See also: Parasitosis....
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Demarcation
Demarcation: A setting of limits; a boundary; marking the limits of, delimiting; setting apart, separating. The word "demarcation" is used in medicine mainly in the sense of determining and marking off boundaries. For example, the surface demarcation in respect to damaged tissue can refer to the bou...
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Dementia
Dementia: Significant loss of intellectual abilities
such as memory capacity, severe enough to interfere with social or
occupational functioning.
Criteria for the diagnosis of dementia include impairment of
attention, orientation, memory, judgment, language, motor and spatial
skills, and functi...
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Dementia complex, AIDS
Dementia complex, AIDS: See: AIDS dementia complex....
