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This is a comprehensive list of
terms used to describe altered states associated with brain injury such as
trauma, stroke, or tumor or with developmental deficits. Most psychiatric
diagnostic terms (e.g., schizophrenia), disease names, and named syndromes are
not included.
Related forms vary in
starting with the prefix a-, dys-, or para-. Words beginning a- signify
a complete absence, lack, or inability; i.e., aphagia is the inability to swallow. Words
beginning with dys- signify partial loss or disability; i.e., dysphagia is difficulty
swallowing. The para- form is a generalization meaning abnormal. These prefix conventions are not
always followed rigorously. All commonly used forms are listed (and
cross-referenced in brackets) for ease of use of this list.
The following definitions
are paraphrased from definitions in a large number of print and
on-line dictionaries, and neurology textbooks.
Abasia (dysbasia): Inability to walk
properly, taking steps that are too big or too small.
Ablepsia:
Blindness.
Abulia: Loss
of willpower or ability to make decisions.
Acalculia
(dyscalculia, anarithmetria): Inability to use mathematics.
Acataphasia:
Inability to formulate a statement or expression in an organized manner.
Achromatopsia:
Complete color blindness; able only to see shades of black and white.
Acoria
(akoria): Inability to feel satiated, regardless of how much is eaten.
Acyanopsia
(tritanopia): Color blindness in the blue region of the spectrum.
Adiadochokinesia
(dysdiadochokinesia): Inability to perform rapidly alternating movements,
that is, to stop a movement and follow it with another in an opposite
direction.
Ageusia
(parageusia, ageustia): Loss of the sense of taste.
Ageustia (ageusia,
parageusia): Loss of the sense of taste.
Agnosia: A general term for a loss of
ability to recognize objects, people, sounds, shapes, or smells; that is, an inability to attach meaning to objective sense-data.
Usually used when the primary sense organ involved is not impaired.
Agraphesthesia: Inability to identify a letter or
number being written on a part of the body.
Agraphia
(dysgraphia): Inability to express thought in written language (usually not
due to mechanical dysfunction).
Agrypnia (ahypnia): Insomnia.
Ahypnia
(agrypnia): Insomnia.
Akathisia:
Motor restlessness; an inability to sit still. Often caused by defects in the
extrapyramidal system.
Akinesia
(dyskinesia, parakinesia): Extreme reluctance to perform elementary motor
activities. A form of apraxia.
Akoria
(acoria): Inability to feel satiated, regardless of how much is eaten.
Alalia:
Inability to speak.
Alexia: Inability to read and understand written language. A
subform of dyslexia.
Allesthesia: Perception of the limb opposite to the one stimulated.
Related to dyschiria.
Alliesthesia:
Perception of the same external stimulus as sometimes pleasant and sometimes
unpleasant.
Allodynia:
Pain caused by a normally nonpainful stimulus.
Allolalia:
Speech disorder.
Alogia: Speech
defect due to a brain lesion or injury.
Amelodia (aprosodia):
Absence of normal variations of pitch, rhythm, and stress in speech.
Amentia:
Extreme mental retardation.
Amnesia: Total
or partial loss of memory.
Amusia:
Inability to produce or appreciate musical sounds.
Anacusia:
Deafness.
Analgesia:
Absence of a normal sense of pain.
Anarithmetria
(acalculia, dyscalculia): Inability to use mathematics.
Anarthria: A
general term related to altered speech that includes either aphonia or
aprosodia.
Anergia:
Listless or lacking in energy.
Anhedonia:
Inability to experience pleasure.
Anomia
(dysnomia): General term for the inability to name objects. Can be limited to
objects in semantic categories such as living things, inanimate things,
fruits, colors, etc.
Anopsia:
Blindness in one eye.
Anorexia
(dysorexia): Loss of appetite as part of a pathologic fear of weight gain.
Anosmia
(dysosmia, anosphrasia): Lack of the sense of smell.
Anosognosia:
Unawareness of, denial of, or failure to recognize one's own neurologic
deficit. For example, people paralyzed on the left side may claim an ability
to move their left arm.
Anosphrasia
(anosmia, dysosmia): Loss of sense of smell.
Apastia:
Refusal to eat.
Aphagia (dysphagia):
Difficulty swallowing.
Aphasia (dysphasia): General term that
literally means "no speech." It refers to any impairment of the ability to use or understand words
and can be used to describe loss of one or more of the following: ability to
speak, ability to write, ability to understand speech, ability to understand
written words. Major subcategories include Broca's aphasia, in which one can
comprehend speech but not produce it, and Wernicke's aphasia in which one can
produce speech but not comprehend it.
Aphemia: Inability to speak words but
able to make other sounds.
Aphonia (dysphonia): Loss of ability to speak; inability to
produce speech sounds. Distinguished from the motor defect dysarthria.
Aphrasia:
Inability to make intelligible spoken sentences.
Apraxia (dyspraxia): Difficulty in performing a learned movement or coordinated
motor activity even though understanding, motor coordination, and
sensation are normal. Specific apraxias may be limited to a certain group of
functions, such as inability to dress oneself.
Aprosodia (amelodia): Absence of normal
variations of pitch, rhythm, and stress in speech.
Areflexia
(dysreflexia): Absent reflex in response to a stimulus.
Asemia: Loss
of ability to express or understand symbols or signs of thought.
Asitia: Lack
of appetite or loathing of food.
Astasis:
Inability to stand due to lack of motor coordination but having normal
strength.
Astereognosia:
Inability to identify objects that are palpated.
Asthenia:
General weakness or debilitation.
Asynergia:
Loss of motor coordination.
Ataxia: Poor
coordination and unsteadiness due to failure to regulate the body's posture,
and strength and direction of limb movements.
Atonia: Lack
of muscle tension or tone.
Bradykinesia:
Abnormal slowness of movement caused by a neurologic defect.
Circumlocution:
Evasive speech or use of unusual definitions.
Confabulation:
Answering of questions by an inappropriate, made-up attempt to explain.
Coprolalia:
Offensive speech such as swear words.
DŽjˆ vu
(paramnesia): The illusory experience that something was previously
experienced but is actually being experienced for the first time.
Dementia:
General term for loss of intellectual or cognitive abilities.
Deuteranopia:
Color blindness in which bluish red and green are confused.
Diplopia:
Double vision.
Dysacusis: Distortion
of hearing of sound frequency or intensity, often painful.
Dysaesthesia
(dysesthesia): Abnormal sensations of the skin. Sometimes used more generally
for the impairment of any of the senses.
Dysantigraphia:
Inability to copy writing or printed letters.
Dysaphia:
Impaired sense of touch.
Dysarthria: Imperfect articulation of speech due to disturbances of
muscular control. This is distinguished from aphonia.
Dysbasia
(abasia): Difficulty walking, usually by taking steps that are too big or too
small.
Dyscalculia
(acalculia, anarithmetria): Impaired ability to use mathematics.
Dyschiria: Inability to tell which side of the body has been
touched. Related to allesthesia.
Dyschronation:
Distorted sense of time.
Dysdiadochokinesia (adiadochokinesia): Difficulty in performing rapidly alternating
movements, that is, to stop a movement and follow it with another in an
opposite direction.
Dysergia:
Motor impairment due to axonal transmission failure.
Dysesthesia
(dysaesthesia): Abnormal sensations of the skin. Sometimes used more
generally for the impairment of any of the senses.
Dysgraphia
(agraphia): Difficulty expressing thought in written language (usually not
due to mechanical dysfunction).
Dyskinesia
(akinesia, parakinesia): Extreme reluctance to perform elementary motor
activities. A form of apraxia.
Dyslexia: Difficulty in properly interpreting or producing written
language. Individuals can see and recognize letters but have difficulty spelling
and writing words. They have no impairment of intelligence, or of object or
picture identification. Related to alexia
Dyslogia:
Difficulty in expressing ideas.
Dysmetria:
Uncoordinated movement that misses its target.
Dysmimia:
Difficulty in expressing oneself by gestures or signs. Inability to
physically imitate.
Dysmorphophobia:
Obsession that a normal body part is malformed or poor in appearance.
Dysnomia
(anomia): General term for a difficulty in naming objects. Can be limited to
objects in semantic categories such as living things, inanimate things,
fruits, colors, etc.
Dysorexia
(anorexia): Loss of appetite as part of a pathologic fear of weight gain.
Dysosmia
(anosmia, anosphrasia): Lack of the sense of smell.
Dysphagia
(aphagia): Difficulty swallowing.
Dysphasia
(aphasia): Impairment of the ability to use or understand words.
Dysphemia:
Substitution of an offensive word for an ordinary one.
Dysphonia (aphonia):
Impaired ability to speak or to produce speech sounds. Distinguished from the
motor defect dysarthria.
Dyspraxia
(apraxia): Difficulty in performing a learned movement or coordinated motor
activity even though understanding, motor coordination, and sensation are
normal. Specific dyspraxias may be limited to a certain group of functions,
such as difficulty in dressing oneself.
Dysreflexia
(areflexia): Abnormal reflex in response to a stimulus.
Dyssomnia:
Disordered sleep such as insomnia or hypersomnia.
Dyssynergia:
Disorganized motor movement.
Dystonia:
Maintenance of a persistent posture or position; locked into position.
Echolalia:
Imitation of sounds without comprehension of their meaning. Normal in
children but an abnormality in adults.
Echopraxia:
Involuntary imitation of the movements made by another.
Environmental agnosia: Inability to orient to physically familiar places but able to orient
to an abstract representation such as a map.
Hemianopsia:
Loss of either the left or right half of the field of vision.
Hemiballismus:
Wild, involuntary movement of the limbs on one side of the body.
Hemiparesis:
Muscle weakness on one side of the body.
Hemiplegia:
Complete paralysis of one side of the body.
Hyperacusis:
Extreme sensitivity to sounds.
Hyperalgesia
(hyperpathia): Increased reaction to a stimulus, especially a repetitive
stimulus, as well as an increased threshold. Often painful.
Hyperkinesia:
Abnormal quickness of movement caused by a neurologic defect.
Hyperpathia (hyperalgesia):
Increased reaction to a stimulus, especially a repetitive stimulus, as well
as an increased threshold. Often painful.
Hypogeusia:
Diminished sense of taste.
Hyposmia:
Diminished sense of smell.
Jamais vu: The
sensation of everything being strange and unfamiliar.
Jargon:
Normal-sounding speech but made up of nonsense words.
Lethologica:
Temporary inability to remember a proper noun or a name.
Moria:
Euphoric and erotic behavior after a stroke or injury in the prefrontal
cortex.
Neologisia:
Use of word forms that do not exist.
Nystagmus:
Involuntary, rapid, jerky movement of the eyeball.
Palinopia
(palinopsia): Inappropriate persistence of a visual image after its removal.
Palinopsia
(palinopia): Inappropriate persistence of a visual image after its removal.
Parablepsia:
False vision such as a hallucination or illusion.
Paracusia:
Abnormal hearing.
Paraesthesia:
Tingling sensation on the skin.
Parageusia
(ageusia, ageustia): Abnormality of the sense of taste.
Paragraphia:
Miswriting when responding to a spoken word or number.
Parakinesia
(akinesia, dyskinesia): Extreme reluctance to perform elementary motor
activities. A form of apraxia.
Paralalia:
Abnormal speech sounds.
Paralexia:
Transposition of words or syllables.
Paramnesia:
Abnormal memory of the meaning of words. Also used synonymously with the term
dŽjˆ vu, meaning to have the illusory experience that something was
previously experienced but is actually being experienced for the first time.
Paraphasia:
Misuse of words, especially while talking.
Parapnasia:
Incorrect word combinations.
Parasomia:
Perversion of the sense of smell, especially the subjective perception of
nonexistent odors.
Paresis:
Partial or incomplete paralysis.
Perseveration:
Inappropriate repetition of an action or behavior.
Prosopagnosia:
Inability to recognize faces.
Protanopia:
Color blindness in which red and green are confused.
Simultanagnosia:
Inability to comprehend more than one element of a visual scene
simultaneously or to integrate the parts into a whole.
Somesthesia:
Disorder of sensation of touch, pain, temperature, limb position, or body
sense.
Strabismus:
Imperfect eye gaze coordination, such as cross-eyed or wall-eyed.
Synesthesia:
An inappropriate sensory perception, such as perceiving a color in response
to a particular odor.
Topagnosis:
Inability to localize the site of tactile stimulation.
Topographagnosia:
Inability to orient to an abstract spatial representation such as a map.
Tritanopia
(acyanopsia): Color blindness in the blue region of the spectrum.
Verbal dysdecoru§m: Inability to self-monitor the appropriateness of speech in social
settings.
Verbigeration:
Inappropriate repetition of the last word spoken.
Witzelsucht:
Inappropriate joking or factitious behavior after a stroke or injury in the
prefrontal cortex.
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