Cystic Fibrosis Glossary

When preparing to battle cystic fibrosis, it is essential that you arm yourself with, in addition to information, the knowledge of terms that might be used by doctors. I came across some words that I never heard of while attending school and working in the home health aide field. Not knowing was not a good thing. Every time I heard a word that I did not know, I wrote it down and looked it up. After a while, I started to carry a medical dictionary, something that I recommend strongly for you to do. But with the Internet been a huge source of information you can actually find the meaning of those medical terms.

This article will provide you with some basic terms that you might hear. I will keep the definitions to the terms short, in order to make it simple as possible. There are, of course, more terms then the ones that will be provided in this article.

Abdominal: Relating to the abdomen, also known as the belly

Abnormal: Not normal

Aerobic: Oxygen-requiring.

CFT: Cystic fibrosis conductance regulator

Clubbing: Rounding and enlargements of fingers and toes

Cough: A rapid expulsion of air from the lungs

Cystic fibrosis: One of the most common genetic diseases

Emphysema : A pathological accumulation of airway in organs or tissues

Gene therapy: An evolving technique used to treat inherited diseases (e.g. cystic fibrosis)

Mucociliary Escalator: The coordinated action of tiny projections on the surfaces of cells lining the respiratory tract

Mucolytic: An agent that dissolves or destroys mucin, the chief component of mucus

Pneumonia: lung infection that can be caused by a number of micro-organisms

Sinusitis: Inflammatory of the nasal sinuses, which are cavities in the skull behind, above and on both sides of the nose

Sputum: Mucus or phlegm coughed up from the lungs

Sputum Culture: A test that sees what germs maybe growing in the sputum

Sputum Density : A measurement of mucus or phlegm coughed up from the lungs

Standard Treatment: An effective treatment or drug approved by the FDA for a specific disease or condition

Staphylococcus Aureus: A type of bacteria that can cause infections. In CF, "staph" often causes lung infections

Theses are just some of the basics terms. There are more complex terms that doctors will use. When those terms come about look them up in your medical dictionary or on the Internet.

Here are some web sites I used or found to create a resource for those reading this article:

www.medicineenet.com/cystic-fibrosis/glossary.htm
www.cystic-fibrosis-symptoms.com/glossary.htm
www.cff.org/research/clinicalresearch/glossary
http://cysticfibrosis.about.com/od/glossary/Cystic_Fibrosis_Terminology.htm
http://cystic-l.org/handbook/html/glossary.htm