Disease caused by infection with various strains of the bacillus Vibrio cholerae, transmitted in contaminated water and characterized by violent diarrhoea and vomiting. It is prevalent in many tropical areas.
Inflammation of the liver. There are many types of hepatitis. Causes include viruses, toxic chemicals, alcohol consumption, parasites and bacteria, and certain drugs.
Influenza or flu, acute, highly contagious disease caused by a virus; formerly known as the grippe. There are three types of the virus, designated A, B, and C, but only types A and B cause more serious contagious infections.
Inflammation of the meninges (membranes) surrounding the brain, caused by bacterial or viral infection. Bacterial meningitis, though treatable by antibiotics, is the more serious threat. Diagnosis is by lumbar puncture.
Acute infection of one or both lungs that can be caused by a bacterium, usually Streptococcus pneumoniae (also called pneumococcus; see streptococcus), or by a virus, fungus, or other organism.
Acute, highly contagious disease causing a high fever and successive stages of severe skin eruptions. The disease dates from the time of ancient Egypt or before.
Tuberculosis results form infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The lungs are the site most often affected, but most organs in the body can be involved in tuberculosis.
Lack of desire to eat, or refusal to eat, especially the pathological condition of anorexia nervosa, most often found in adolescent girls and young women.
Anxiety is an unpleasant affect accompanied by a myriad of physiologic manifestations (quickened heart beat, gastrointestinal distress, ‘butterflies’ and diarrhoea, a tightening in the chest, tremulousness, sweating, muscle tension) as well as psychological manifestations (a sense of dread and impending danger, of helplessness, of insecurity and uncertainty).
Autism, a condition of neurodevelopment, is more common in males, with onset typically in infancy. It is diagnosed when a child or adult has abnormalities in a ‘triad’ of behavioral domains: social development, communication, and repetitive behavior / obsessive interests.
Any of several psychological disorders of mood characterized usually by alternating episodes of depression and mania — called also manic depression, manic-depressive illness.
Disorder best defined as a collection of psychological symptoms including sadness; unhappy thoughts characterized by worry, poor self-image, self-blame, guilt and low self-confidence; downbeat views on the future; and a feeling of hopelessness.
Obsessive compulsive disorder is defined in the DSM-IV as the presence of either obsessions or compulsions (or both). Obsessions are defined as recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress.
(PTSD), mental disorder that follows an occurrence of extreme psychological stress, such as that encountered in war or resulting from violence, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, or serious accident.
In psychiatry, a broad category of mental disorder encompassing the most serious emotional disturbances, often rendering the individual incapable of staying in contact with reality.
From the Encyclopedia of Special Education
Tourette syndrome is a child-onset neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements or vocalizations, otherwise known as tics, and occurs in approximately .04 to .4 percent of the population.
Condition characterized by chest pain that occurs when the muscles of the heart receive an insufficient supply of oxygen. This results when the arteries that supply the heart muscle with oxygenated blood are narrowed by arteriosclerosis.
Partial or complete loss of sight. Blindness may be caused by injury, by lesions of the brain or optic nerve, by disease of the cornea or retina, by pathological changes originating in systemic disorders (e.g., diabetes) and by cataract, glaucoma, or retinal detachment.
Diabetes mellitus, often referred to simply as diabetes, is not a single disease but a group of metabolic disorders characterized by hyperglycemia (elevated blood glucose) resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both.
Pathological or physiological enlargement or overdistention of the air sacs of the lungs. A major cause of pulmonary insufficiency in chronic cigarette smokers, emphysema is a progressive disease that commonly occurs in conjunction with chronic bronchitis.
A disease, most commonly of post-menopausal women, in which the bones become porous, brittle and liable to fracture, owing to the loss of calcium from the bone substance.
A form of arthritis, particularly common in women, that causes pain, swelling, stiffness and deformity of the joints, especially of the fingers, wrists, ankles, feet or hips.