CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE - Imaging and Intervention

Agnosia - failure to recognize familiar objects perceived by the senses; components include auditory, color, tactile, and visual object agnosia.

Aphasia - loss of the ability to express oneself with or to understand language.

Apraxia - inability to perform previously learned purposeful motor acts on a voluntary basis.

Ataxia - loss of muscular coordination.

Dysarthria - defects in word articulation due to neurological causes; slurred speech.

Dysphagia- difficulty swallowing.

Dysphasia - impairment of coordination in speech and inability to arrange words in their proper order, usually associated with brain injury.

Extinction - the point at which a nerve becomes inexcitable after responding to stimulus.

FLAIR (fluid attenuated inversion recovery) - an MRI technique which uses a long T1 value to suppress the signal of water. This is useful in imaging of multiple sclerosis.

Fibrinolysis (fibrinolytic) - the dissolution or break down of the fibrin which makes up an intravascular thrombus; see thrombolysis.

Hemianopia (hemianopsia) - blindness in half the field of vision in one or both eyes.

Hemiparesis - muscular weakness or mild paralysis of one side of the body.

Hemiplegia - paralysis of one side of the body.

Ischemia - loss of adequate blood supply to an organ or structure due to stenosis or occlusion.

Morbidity - the condition of being diseased; the ratio of diseased individuals to a given population.

Mortality - the death rate; total deaths in a given population or given period of time.

Nidus - The "nest", or point of focus or origin of a pathological process.

Obtund - to diminish pain or touch sensations.

Occlusive - Refering to complete obstruction or closure (occlusion) of the lumen of a vessel.

Paresthesia - abnormal sensation, such as burning, tingling, or numbness.

Quadrantanopia (quadrantanopsia) - blindness in approximately one quarter of the visual field.

Stenosis - narrowing of the lumen of a vessel, often due to thrombosis or atherosclerotic plaque formation.

Thromboembolus - an embolus consisting of blood clot particles, usually originating from a standing intra-arterial thrombus.

Thrombolysis (thrombolytic) - the dissolution or destruction of intravascular thrombus; term is often used interchangeably with fibrinolysis. Commonly used agents include streptokinase (SK), urokinase (UK, widely used in interventional radiologic procedures), and recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rTPA).

1. Smeltzer, S., and Bare, B., Brunner and Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing, 8^th Ed.,
2. Dox, I., Melloni, B., et al, Melloni's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 3^rd Ed., 1993.
3. Woodward, P., & Freimarck, R., MRI for Technologists, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995.