Nursing Glossary
Nursing Glossary
20 Nursing terms
My name is Kim, and I am a nursing student. This is my second year in this program, and I love it even if it’s a lot of terms and techniques to learn in short period. This glossary is filled up with words that are useful for first year nursing students so that they can refer to it when they don’t know the meaning of a term. But before we start, what is nursing? The role of a nurse is wide because we have a lot of responsibilities. But the main role is to take care of the patients, make sure they are comfortable, administer their medications, assist the doctor, make a care plan, promote health, prevent illness and support the patient but also his family.
- Arrhythmia
- An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart rhythm, where the heart beats too fast (tachycardia), too slow (bradycardia), or with an irregular pattern.
- Aseptic
- Free from contamination caused by harmful bacteria, viruses, or other microorganisms.
- Assessment
- The evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something.
- Auscultation
- Auscultation is a medical diagnostic technique involving listening to internal body sounds, typically using a stethoscope.
- Blood pressure
- The pressure of the blood in the circulatory system, often measured for diagnosis since it is closely related to the force and rate of the heartbeat and the diameter and elasticity of the arterial walls.
- Catheter
- A flexible tube inserted through a narrow opening into a body cavity, particularly the bladder, for removing fluid.
- Cyanosis
- A bluish discoloration of the skin resulting from poor circulation or inadequate oxygenation of the blood.
- Defibrillation
- The stopping of fibrillation of the heart by administering a controlled electric shock in order to allow restoration of the normal rhythm.
- Diabetes
- A disease in which the body’s ability to produce or respond to the hormone insulin is impaired, resulting in abnormal metabolism of carbohydrates and elevated levels of glucose in the blood and urine.
- Diagnosis
- The identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms.
- Disease
- A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that has a distinctive group of symptoms, signs, or anatomical changes and often a known cause.
- Dyspnea
- Difficult or labored breathing.
- Embolism
- Obstruction of an artery, typically by a clot of blood or an air bubble.
- Erythema
- Superficial reddening of the skin, usually in patches, as a result of injury or irritation causing dilatation of the blood capillaries.
- Intubation
- The insertion of a tube into a patient's body, especially that of an artificial ventilation tube into the trachea.
- Pathology
- The science of the causes and effects of diseases, especially the branch of medicine that deals with the laboratory examination of samples of body tissue for diagnostic or forensic purposes.
- Pediatric
- Relating to the branch of medicine dealing with children and their diseases.
- Stethoscope
- A medical instrument for listening to the action of someone's heart or breathing, typically having a small disk-shaped resonator that is placed against the chest, and two tubes connected to earpieces.
- Syncope
- Syncope is the medical term for fainting or passing out, defined as a temporary, sudden loss of consciousness and postural tone with spontaneous recovery.
- Tumor
- A swelling of a part of the body, generally without inflammation, caused by an abnormal growth of tissue, whether benign or malignant.