Medical Terminology Breakdown

Associate Level Material
Medical Terminology Breakdown

Break down 10 medical words from your chosen article.
Place the component parts in the correct boxes.
Copy and paste this template into your Week Eight paper.

Medical Word Prefix Combining form Suffix Definition
1 fibromyalgia Fibr/o- My/o- alg/o- -la Pain located at specific trigger points in the muscles of the neck, back, or hips. The trigger points are tender to the touch and feel firm. The cause is not known, but may be related to an overreaction to painful stimuli with a possible history of prior injury or a genetic predisposition. Fibromyalgia is associated with disturbed sleep patterns and sometimes depression. 2 neuromuscular Neur/o- Muscul/o- =ar Pertaining to the nerve muscle
3 electromyographic Electr/o My/o -graphic signals are recorded using a high-density electrode-grid
4 trapezius muscle Muscle of the shoulder that raises the shoulder, pulls the shoulder blades together, and elevates the clavicle. It turns the head from side to side (rotation) and moves the head posteriorly (extension).
5 muscle Muscul/o- Structure that produces movement of the body
6 muscle fibers (which is actually one long muscle cell) has hundreds of nuclei along its length to speed up the chemical processes that must occur before it can contract.
7 myalgia My/o- Alg/o- -la Pain in one or more muscles due to injury or muscle disease.
8 anatomical Ana/o Tomi/o- -cal Separating in parts for detailed study
9 monotonous
10 musculoskeletal Muscul/o Skelet/o -al The close relationship between the muscles and the bones.

The article I chose to critique is one that is extremely personal to me. My aunt has suffered with fibromyalgia, a chronic, episodic pain disorder for the last several years and thought this area of research to be most intriguing and appropriate. Fibromyalgia (FM) syndrome is considered a chronic rheumatic condition of unknown etiology characterized by widespread non-inflammatory musculoskeletal pain with tenderness on palpation in a minimum of 11 of the 18 tender points for at least three months. The objective of the study was to investigate how effective a six week traditional exercise program with supplementary whole-body vibration (WBV) would be in improving the health status, physical functioning, and main systems of FM in women. Hence, in considering the combined treatment, it is essential to understand the components of the combined program. The traditional exercise program consisted of 15 minutes of a warm-up, 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, 25 minutes of stretching exercise, and 20 minutes of relaxation, while WBV is a mode of exercise that has recently been utilized to improve muscle strength, bone density and balance in healthy adults and aging populations. Since this disorder is one that has no real cause or cure for that matter, this research critique may lend brief clarity to those who completely misunderstand how valid and debilitating FM is. It was hypothesized that women with FM undergoing the traditional exercise with supplementary WBV would improve health status, physical functioning, and main symptoms of FM more so than women undergoing exercise only. Researchers expected their hypothesis to be supported by using a 2-factor mixed experimental design, where 36 women suffering from FM were randomized into three treatment groups for six weeks. The groups were traditional exercise and vibration, exercise and control. The study’s measurement began with a base evaluation to include a complete medical history, current medication, physical activity and habits, preferred types of exercise and socioeconomic status. The study was further validated by using the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), a reliable tool used in research and clinical settings. I am almost in tears as I continue this research, wishing that I could be involved in a research study which is not only theorized as valid, but uses various methods to derive detailed outcomes. It would give people like me more than hypothetical open-ended answers, and verify that FM patients should be treated with systematic respect rather than viewed as trumped up mentally unstable hypochondriacs, who want unwarranted attention. I would imagine that there are many who feel the way I do and would equally guess that such uncertainty about what I call “A Pink Elephant” condition (FM) may have been what led researchers to the above hypothesis and experiment (s) used to test the hypothesis. As stated, the subjects were 36 women who suffered from FM; they were recruited by referral from family physicians and through public announcements. However, the study excluded women who were participating in other studies and suffered from any of the following: orthopedic limitations, cardiovascular, pulmonary, or metabolic disease, because any of these factors would impair the experiment. All exercise sessions were conducted by the same instructor, who had experience working with FM. Although the traditional exercise program was similar to other studies, the inclusion of the WBV in patients with FM was the unique aspect to the experiment. The six week time frame was ideal because previous research has shown this was sufficient time for WBV-induced adaptations to occur, and allowed the experiment to prove if the hypothesis was true or false. The independent variable of this study is FM while the dependent variable is traditional exercise combined with whole body vibration. With the subjects used and the experimental method, I found no reason to believe that results were anything other than atypical. I don’t feel that there would be any statistical scientific variances in the findings if the test was administered again by different researchers as long as the same requirements, goals and objectives were measured. The women were carefully selected with restrictions before the study begun. Researchers made sure that there was an ample amount of subjects to complete the experiment. There was no mortality problems found, the controlled groups were adequate and there weren’t any controlled variables that the article did not cover. If I had participated in this study, I would not have been able to predict the outcome or agree with the stated hypothesis, because I have tried many avenues to reduce my chronic pain and unfortunately all have only provided temporary relief, I live daily with “firestorms”. Moreover, it is clear that researchers purposely eliminated subject participation that had any mediating circumstances to rule out the possibility of confounding variables being an issue. There were no operational definitions; all abbreviated acronyms were clearly spelled out in the beginning of the article, which made it reader friendly. This experiment was well designed to accurately test the researcher’s hypothesis. The statistics and experiment directly test the predictions that were made in the introduction. The only discrepancies encountered were the subjects who did not complete the study, however; this did not alter the experiment overall. The article was informative and I had no questions after reading it, thus; I was left with the desire to want to participate in a similar study. My observation was that there were not any illogical-null results other than the five subjects who failed to complete the study. The explanation and experiment coincide with the authors’ theory and suggest that the subjects who completed the entire six week experiment of a traditional exercise program with supplementary WBV safely reduces pain and fatigue, whereas exercise alone fails to induce improvements. I was enlightened by this topic of research; I have attempted to better understand the condition (FM) that not only changes the lives of the people who suffer from it but it also dramatically alters the lives of the loved ones that experience this condition with them.