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Kuru (disease)
Kuru was a rare, incurable, and fatal Neurological disorder, neurodegenerative disorder that was formerly common among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. It is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, prion disease which leads to tremors and loss of coordination from neurodegeneration. The term ''kúru'' means “trembling” and comes from the Fore language, Fore word ''kuria'' or ''guria'' ("to shake"). It is also known as "laughing sickness" due to abnormal bursts of laughter which occur. It was spread among the Fore people via Endocannibalism, funerary cannibalism. Deceased family members were traditionally cooked and eaten, which was thought to help free the spirit of the dead. Women and children usually eat the brain, where infectious prions were most concentrated, and therefore were more commonly affected. The outbreak likely started when a villager developed sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and died. When villagers ate the brain, they contracted the disease and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fore People
The Fore () people live in the Okapa District of the Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. There are approximately 20,000 Fore who are separated by the Wanevinti Mountains into the North Fore and South Fore regions. Their main form of subsistence is slash-and-burn farming. The Fore language has three distinct dialects and is the southernmost member of the East Central Family, East New Guinea Highlands Stock, Trans–New Guinea phylum of Papuan languages. In the 1950s the neurological disease kuru was discovered in the South Fore. The local tradition of ritual cannibalism of their dead had led to an epidemic, with approximately 2,700 deaths from 1957 to 2005. History Until the 1950s, the Fore people had minimal direct contact with outsiders who were at the time colonizing Papua New Guinea. A small number of prospectors crossed through their territory in the 1930s and at least one plane crashed there during World War II. New diseases such as influenza reached them be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fore Language
Fore or Foré ( ) is a Kainantu-Goroka languages, Kainantu-Goroka language spoken in the Goroka District of Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. Phonology The consonants of Fore are as follows:Graham Scott. 1977. The Fore Language of Papua New Guinea. (Doctoral dissertation, Australian National University; xvi+244pp.) https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/c1e29047-94be-4757-a1d1-6679c850e3c9/content All the dental consonants can vary to alveolar, except /t̪/ which is always dental. /p/, /t̪/, and /k/ are pronounced as /b/, /ɾ/, and /g/ between vowels. Velar consonants are labialized after rounded vowels. /j/ is often pronounced as a fricative /ʝ/. Fore has six vowels: It also has four diphthongs: ae, ao, ai, and au. Fore has a Pitch-accent language, pitch accent system. Each syllable is either accented or unaccented. Multiple accented syllables can occur in the same word, but they cannot be adjacent to each other. External links ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pressure Ulcer
Pressure ulcers, also known as pressure sores, bed sores or pressure injuries, are localised ulcer (dermatology), damage to the skin and/or underlying tissue that usually occur over a Bone, bony prominence as a result of usually long-term pressure, or pressure in combination with Shear force, shear or friction. The most common sites are the skin overlying the sacrum, coccyx, heels, and hips, though other sites can be affected, such as the elbows, knees, ankles, back of shoulders, or the back of the cranium. Pressure ulcers occur due to pressure applied to soft tissue resulting in completely or partially obstructed blood flow to the soft tissue. Shear is also a cause, as it can pull on blood vessels that feed the skin. Pressure ulcers most commonly develop in individuals who are not moving about, such as those who are on chronic bedrest or consistently use a wheelchair. It is widely believed that other factors can influence the tolerance of skin for pressure and shear, thereby ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dysphagia
Dysphagia is difficulty in swallowing. Although classified under " symptoms and signs" in ICD-10, in some contexts it is classified as a condition in its own right. It may be a sensation that suggests difficulty in the passage of solids or liquids from the mouth to the stomach, a lack of pharyngeal sensation or various other inadequacies of the swallowing mechanism. Dysphagia is distinguished from other symptoms including odynophagia, which is defined as painful swallowing, and globus, which is the sensation of a lump in the throat. A person can have dysphagia without odynophagia (dysfunction without pain), odynophagia without dysphagia (pain without dysfunction) or both together. A psychogenic dysphagia is known as phagophobia. Classification Dysphagia is classified into the following major types: # Oropharyngeal dysphagia # Esophageal and obstructive dysphagia # Neuromuscular symptom complexes # Functional dysphagia is defined in some patients as having no organic c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tendon Reflex
A tendon or sinew is a tough band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It sends the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system, while withstanding tension. Tendons, like ligaments, are made of collagen. The difference is that ligaments connect bone to bone, while tendons connect muscle to bone. There are about 4,000 tendons in the adult human body. Structure A tendon is made of dense regular connective tissue, whose main cellular components are special fibroblasts called tendon cells (tenocytes). Tendon cells synthesize the tendon's extracellular matrix, which abounds with densely-packed collagen fibers. The collagen fibers run parallel to each other and are grouped into fascicles. Each fascicle is bound by an endotendineum, which is a delicate loose connective tissue containing thin collagen fibrils and elastic fibers. A set of fascicles is bound by an epitenon, which is a sheath of dense irregular connective tissu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depression (mood)
Depression is a mental state of low Mood (psychology), mood and aversion to activity. It affects about 3.5% of the global population, or about 280 million people worldwide, as of 2020. Depression affects a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings, and subjective well-being, sense of well-being. The pleasure or joy that a person gets from certain experiences is reduced, and the afflicted person often experiences a loss of motivation or interest in those activities. People with depression may experience sadness, feelings of dejection or hopelessness, difficulty in thinking and concentration, or a significant change in appetite or time spent sleeping; Suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts can also be experienced. Depression can have multiple, sometimes overlapping, origins. Depression can be a symptom of some mood disorders, some of which are also commonly called ''depression'', such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and dysthymia. Additionally, depression can be a norm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ataxia
Ataxia (from Greek α- negative prefix+ -τάξις rder= "lack of order") is a neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements that can include gait abnormality, speech changes, and abnormalities in eye movements, that indicates dysfunction of parts of the nervous system that coordinate movement, such as the cerebellum. These nervous system dysfunctions occur in several different patterns, with different results and different possible causes. Ataxia can be limited to one side of the body, which is referred to as hemiataxia. Friedreich's ataxia has gait abnormality as the most commonly presented symptom. Dystaxia is a mild degree of ataxia. Types Cerebellar The term cerebellar ataxia is used to indicate ataxia due to dysfunction of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for integrating a significant amount of neural information that is used to coordinate smoothly ongoing movements and to participate in motor planning. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titubation
A tremor is an involuntary, somewhat rhythmic muscle contraction and relaxation involving oscillations or twitching movements of one or more body parts. It is the most common of all involuntary movements and can affect the hands, arms, eyes, face, head, vocal folds, trunk, and legs. Most tremors occur in the hands. In some people, a tremor is a symptom of another neurological disorder. Types Tremor is most commonly classified by clinical features and cause or origin. Some of the better-known forms of tremor, with their symptoms, include the following: * Cerebellar tremor (also known as intention tremor) is a slow, broad tremor of the extremities that occurs at the end of a purposeful movement, such as trying to press a button or touching a finger to the tip of one's nose. In classic cerebellar tremor, a lesion on one side of the brain produces a tremor in that same side of the body that worsens with directed movement. Cerebellar damage can also produce a "wing-beating" type of tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dysarthria
Dysarthria is a speech sound disorder resulting from neurological injury of the motor component of the motor–speech system and is characterized by poor articulation of phonemes. It is a condition in which problems effectively occur with the muscles that help produce speech, often making it very difficult to pronounce words. It is unrelated to problems with understanding language (that is, dysphasia or aphasia), although a person can have both. Any of the speech subsystems ( respiration, phonation, resonance, prosody, and articulation) can be affected, leading to impairments in intelligibility, audibility, naturalness, and efficiency of vocal communication. Dysarthria that has progressed to a total loss of speech is referred to as anarthria. The term ''dysarthria'' was formed from the Greek components ''dys-'' "dysfunctional, impaired" and ''arthr-'' "joint, vocal articulation". Neurological injury due to damage in the central or peripheral nervous system may result in wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prodrome
In medicine, a prodrome is an early sign or symptom (or set of signs and symptoms, referred to as prodromal symptoms) that often indicates the onset of a disease before more diagnostically specific signs and symptoms develop. More specifically, it refers to the period between the first recognition of a disease's symptom until it reaches its more severe form. It is derived from the Greek word ''prodromos'', meaning "running before". Prodromes may be non-specific symptoms or, in a few instances, may clearly indicate a particular disease, such as the prodromal migraine aura. For example, fever, malaise, headache and lack of appetite frequently occur in the prodrome of many infective disorders. A prodrome can be the early precursor to an episode of a chronic neurological disorder such as a migraine headache or an epileptic seizure, where prodrome symptoms may include euphoria or other changes in mood, insomnia, abdominal sensations, disorientation, aphasia, or photosensitivity. Suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asymptomatic
Asymptomatic (or clinically silent) is an adjective categorising the medical conditions (i.e., injuries or diseases) that patients carry but without experiencing their symptoms, despite an explicit diagnosis (e.g., a positive medical test). Pre-symptomatic is the adjective categorising the time periods during which the medical conditions are asymptomatic. Subclinical and paucisymptomatic are other adjectives categorising either the asymptomatic infections (i.e., subclinical infections), or the psychosomatic illnesses and mental disorders expressing a subset of symptoms but not the entire set an explicit medical diagnosis requires. Examples An example of an asymptomatic disease is cytomegalovirus (CMV) which is a member of the herpes virus family. "It is estimated that 1% of all newborns are infected with CMV, but the majority of infections are asymptomatic." (Knox, 1983; Kumar et al. 1984) In some diseases, the proportion of asymptomatic cases can be important. For exam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cerebellar Ataxia
Cerebellar ataxia is a form of ataxia originating in the cerebellum. Non-progressive congenital ataxia (NPCA) is a classical presentation of cerebral ataxias. Cerebellar ataxia can occur as a result of many diseases and may present with symptoms of an inability to coordinate balance, gait, extremity and eye movements. Lesions to the cerebellum can cause dyssynergia, dysmetria, dysdiadochokinesia, dysarthria and ataxia of stance and gait. Deficits are observed with movements on the same side of the body as the lesion (ipsilateral). Clinicians often use visual observation of people performing motor tasks in order to look for signs of ataxia. Signs and symptoms Damage to the cerebellum causes impairment in motor skills and can cause nystagmus. Almost a third of people with isolated, late onset cerebellar ataxia go on to develop multiple system atrophy. The cerebellum's role has been observed as not purely motor. It is combined with intellect, emotion and planning. Cerebellar de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
