All Those Medical Terms, What On Earth Do They Mean?

In my previous blogs, I have usually had to use medical jargon and it got me thinking, how much of it does my audience understand?

Whether you are an interested reader, a parent of a disabled child or someone who works with disabled children, some of you may not understand the terms I frequently use. Even sometimes looking them up online can be confusing. It’s essential to get an explanation in the correct context or written in a way you can completely understand. Consequently, today’s blog will help with this, I’m going to give you a small explanation (in context), of a few words you may have heard me use, when I am chatting away about all of the amazing children I work with.

Manipulate – To handle and control an object in the correct way
 

Manual help – Support from a therapist’s hands or body (physically) in order to help a child, succeed at the specific task
 

Sufficient help – Enough help from a therapist, which may be manual or verbal, in order to help a child, succeed at the specific task
 

Verbal help – Specific verbal instructions in order to help a child understand what they need to do to succeed at the specific task
 

Verbal encouragement – Verbal praise in order to help a child continue the task they are carrying out, to help them continue to succeed.
 

Facilitate – When a therapist helps a child in some way, in order to help them succeed at the specific task
 

Prone – Lying on your tummy
 

Supine – Lying on your back
 

Weight bare – Put body weight through feet, hands or knees
 

Dorsiflexion – To bend or move feet or hands up towards the ceiling
 

Plantar-flexion – To bend or move feet or hands down towards the ground
 

Extend – Straightening a specific part of the body, fingers, arms, legs, hips
 

Hyperextend – Over straighten a specific part of the body, fingers, arms, legs beyond what the joint would usually be able to do
 

High tone (hypertonia) – When the muscles are tight and tense, making it hard for a body part to bend or move
 

Low tone (hypotonia) – When the muscles are loose and relaxed, making it hard to control or move a body part
 

Motor skills – Actions that involve using muscles and the body
 

Fine Motor – Small movements with small muscles being used, usually the hands and fingers
 

Gross motor – Large movements with large muscles being used for example, legs, arms, whole body
 

Differentiate – To change or develop something differently in order to help a child be able to carry out the task in a way that wouldn’t be above their ability

Now of course these are nothing compared to some of the medical words used by doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, but for me I have always preferred to use language most people can understand. This is sometimes not always possible, so I may end up using a few of the words above. I know that occasionally some professionals wouldn’t even realise that you don’t know what on earth we are talking about, so hopefully this blog has helped you out in that respect. Otherwise I hope it’s been enlightening to learn the small amount of knowledge my children’s parents have to learn to help them understand what’s going on with their child.

So if you have any other words your not sure of, please feel free to ask me and hopefully I will be able to explain them.

Thank you for reading.