Medical Terminology: A Comprehensive Guide to Common Terms and Abbreviations, Study notes of Medical Records

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UNIT- 1

INTRODUCTION TO MEDICAL

TERMINOLOGY

Gazala Noor Lecturer Faculty of Pharmacy Integral University, Lucknow

Medical Terminology

• Medical terminology refers to the word and

language used specifically in the medical or in

health fields.

• Approximately 75 % of medical terms are

based on Greek or Latin language.

- Cont’d

• Medical terminology helps in identifying the roles of four types of word parts in forming medical terms.
• It helps in identifying the basic anatomical structure and position of all major organ systems.
• It will help in knowing basic abbreviation related to body system including diagnostic, procedure, pathological, therapeutic and surgical terms.

Basic word parts that form

most medical terms

Word Roots (WR)

• Usually derived form Greek or Latin
• Usually indicates a body part
• Most medical terms have one or more word

roots

Examples of Word Roods

Greek Word Word Root

Kardia (heart) Cardi Gaster (stomach) Gastr Hepar (liver) Hepat Nephros (kidney) Nephr Osteon (bone) oste

Combining Forms (CF)

• Combining Form (CF) is a Word Root (WR) plus a vowel, usually an “o”
• The combination of a word root and a vowel is known as a combining form
• Usually indicates a body part
• When a suffix begins with a vowel, the combining vowel o is not used Example: arthritis (“o”) When connecting two word roots, a combining vowel is usually used even if vowels are present at the junction. Example; oste/o/arthr/itis

Combining Forms Examples

• Cardi/ + o = cardi/o heart
• gastr/ + o = gastr/o stomach
• hepat/ + o = hepat/o liver
• nephr/ + o = nephr/o kidney
• oste/ + o = oste/o bone

Examples of Suffix

• Arthr/o - centesis Arthrocentesis

joint puncture puncture of a joint

• Throac/o - tomy Thoracotomy

chest incision incision of the chest

• Gastr/o - megaly Gastromegaly

stomach enlargement enlargement of the

stomach

Prefix

• Word element located at the beginning of a word
• Changes the meaning of the word
• Prefix are denoted by a dash following the prefix a-, an-, means no, not, without ex-, exo-, means out, away from poly- means many, much, excessive supra- means above, beyond

Examples of Prefix

• A- mast - ia

without breast condition

• hyper- therm - ia

excessive heat condition

• intra- muscul - ar

in muscle relating to

Basic Rule One

• A WR (word root) is used before a suffix that begins with a vowel. Scler/ + osis = sclerosis Basic Rule Two
• A combining vowel is used to link a WR to a suffix that begins with a consonant and to link a WR to another WR to form a compound word colon/o + scope = colonscope osteo/ o/ chondr/ itis = osteochondritis

19 Word Roots and Combining Forms Combining Forms Meaning galact(o) gluco gero glyco gyn(o) home(o) kin(o) milk glucose old age sugars women same movement

20 Combining Forms Meaning kinesi(o) lact(o) leuk(o) lith(o) mio narco necro motion milk white stone smaller; less sleep; numbness death; dying