Medical English: Injuries, Illnesses & Diseases - Burden of Disease

3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
para medicina
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To assess the health of a population, it’s straightforward to focus on mortality, or concepts like life
expectancy, which are based on mortality estimates. But this does not take into account the
suffering that diseases cause the people who live with them.
By looking at both mortality and morbidity (the prevalent diseases), we can have a more
comprehensive understanding of health outcomes.
The sum of mortality and morbidity is called the “burden of disease” by researchers, and can be
measured by a metric called “Disability Adjusted Life Years” (DALYs).
DALYs are standardized units to measure lost health. They help compare the burden of different
diseases in different countries, populations, and times.
Conceptually, one DALY represents one lost year of healthy life – it is the equivalent of losing one
year in good health because of either premature death or disease or disability.
DALYs have been measured in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study by the Institute of
Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) since 1990, and by the “Disease Burden Unit” which was
created in 1998 at the World Health Organization (WHO). It was also prominently featured in the
World Bank’s 1993 World Development Report.
This topic page presents global data on the burden of disease across the world. The data is
broken down by age, type of disability and disease, and country.
https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease
1. Read the text carefully and make sure you understand the following terms. Use a
dictionary if needed:
Mortality
Morbidity
Life expectancy
DALYs
Burden of disease
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3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
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2. Before you begin, make sure you understand all the vocabulary and acronyms in the list.
Then, discuss with a partner: What were the top three causes of the global burden of
disease in 2021?


Cancer
 Maternal disorders
 Other NCDs
Cardiovascular
 Mental disorders
 Respiratory diseases
diseases
 Musculoskeletal
 Respiratory infections
 Conflict and terrorism
disorders
and TB
 Diabetes and kidney
 Natural disasters
 Self-harm
diseases
 Neonatal disorders
 Skin diseases
 Digestive diseases
 Neurological
 Substance use
 Enteric infections
disorders
disorders
 HIV/AIDS and STIs
 Nutritional
 Transport injuries
 Interpersonal violence
deficiencies
 Unintentional injurie
 Malaria & neglected
 Other infectious
tropical diseases
diseases
MEDICAL COLLOCATIONS
Yesterday, Maria had to call in sick because she woke up with a high fever. Her manager reminded
her that she still had one sick day left for the year. By the afternoon, she officially went on sick leave
and sent in a sick note from her doctor. Now she’s off sick and hoping to recover quickly before the
next project deadline.
ODD ONE OUT. In pairs, circle the word that does NOT collocate (naturally
combine) with the given medical term and explain why. This will help you learn
how these terms are used in real medical contexts.
COLLOCATES
degenerative, infectious, liver,
strong
contagious, eating, genetic,
mental
erectile, metabolic, organ,
tropical
long-term, terminal, trafficrelated, viral
hearing, cognitive, deadly,
visual
acute, back, infectious, minor
benign, morning, sleeping,
travel
Down, irritable bowel,
metabolic, throbbing
TERM
ODD ONE OUT
DISEASE
DISORDER
DYSFUNCTION
ILLNESS
IMPAIRMENT
INJURY
SICKNESS
SYNDROME
AN ILLNESS THAT IS NOT VERY SERIOUS
Dictionary)
(formal) An illness that affects a particular part of your body,
especially on that is not serious
(informal) An illness that spreads to other people very easily but
that is not very serious.
(medical) An illness that affects a particular part of your body,
especially one that is not very serious.
(Longman
https://www.ldoceonline.com/Illness%20&%20disability-topic/
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Inglés
3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
para medicina
Listen to the podcast and complete:
Ebola got its name from _____________________________, near where one of the
first
outbreaks
occured
in
_____________,
in
Zaire,
now
________________________.
Zica is named after _____________________ in _______________, where the virus
was first isolated in _____________.
According to the WHO best practices guide disease names…
Should NOT contain:
-
Should consist of a generic descriptive
term based on _______________ or
______________ details like:
- symptoms
- name of the _____________________
-
MERS or M_____________ E____________ R_____________ S_____________
had negative consequences:
-economic implications because
__________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
______________
-could affect the level of care patients get because
__________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Name that Disease
Diseases get their names in a a variety of ways. Some are named for the places
where they were first found, such as Lyme disease (for Lyme, Conneticut); Rift
Valley fever (for a place in Africa). Others are named for people who first described
them, such as Crohn disease (an inflammatory bowel disease); and Hodgkin disease
(of the lymphatic system).
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3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
para medicina
Many diseases are named on the basis of the symptoms they cause. Tuberculosis
cause small lesions known as tubercles in the lungs and tissues. Bubonic plague
causes painful and enlarged lymph nodes called buboes.
Yellow fever, scarlet fever, and rubella (German measles) are named for colors
associated with the pathology of these diseases.
*From: Cohen, B.J .(2003): Medical Terminology: An illustrated Guide, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
PREFIX
brady-
meaning
slow
abnormal,
painful, difficult
example
bradypnea
definition
slow breathing
dysplasia
abnormal development of tissue
mal-
bad, poor
maladaptive
pyrosclerotachy-
fever, fire
hard
rapid
pyrophobia
sclerosis
tachycardia
poorly suited to a specific use or to the
environment
fear of fire
hardening of tissue
rapid heart rate
SUFFIX
-algia
-algesia
-cele
-ia
-ism
meaning
example
definition
pain
myalgia
pain in the muscle
hernia
adipocele
hyperthermia
albinism
-itis
inflammation
meningitis
-megaly
-oma
enlargement
tumour
cardiomegaly
blastoma
a hernia containing fat or fatty tissue.
condition of excessive heat
condition that affect melanin production
inflammation of the membranes around the
brain (menanges)
enlargement of the heart
tumour of immature cells
-osis
abnormal
condition
endometriosis
condition of tissue inside the uterus
-pathy
-rrhea
any disease of
flow, discharge
cardiopathy
muccorrhea
any disease of the heart
discharge of mucus
dys-
condition
1. Complete the diseases described using the affixes from the tables.
hardening of the
slow heart rate
______________cardia
arterio_____________sis
arteries
bad, poor nutrition __________nutrition
absence of pain
an_________
difficulty in
__________pnea
tumor of a bone
oste____________
breathing
enlargement of the
rapid breathing
__________pnea
hepato__________
liver
inflammation of the
fatty tumour
lip_______
encephal___________
brain
tumour of
melan___________
discharge of pus
pyo___________
pigmented cells
abnormal
inflammation of the
__________kinesia
myocard_________
movement
heart muscle
abnormal condition
lung disease
pneumon______
psych________
otf the mind
2. The root gastr/o means “stomach.” Define the following terms:
Gastromegaly, Gastritis, Gastropathy, Gastrocele
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3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
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3. The root neur/o pertains to the nervous system or a nerve. Add a suffix to this root to form
words with the following meanings:
Any disease of the
Pain in a nerve:
nervous system:
Tumour of nervous
Inflammation of a nerve:
system:
CAUSES OF INJURIES
Complete the sentences using the verbs below:
banged
pulled
twisted
stubbed
dislocated
slipped
stumbled
went over
fell
smash
tripped
landed
squashed
twisted
1. I ______________ on a loose paving stone as I was walking down the street and
______________ flat on my face.
2. I ______________ and lost my footing and ______________ my ankle.
3. I ______________ my toe on a chair. I may have fractured it, but I hope I haven’t.
4. I _____________ my knee on the metal table. I am surprised I didn’t ______________ my
kneecap to pieces.
5. I ______________ my ankle when I went over and now I can barely walk. I don’t think it’s
broken or anything. It’s more likely to be a sprain.
6. I ______________ on the wet floor and went over and ______________ on my bottom.
7. The motorbike ______________ on my ankle and crushed my leg.
8. I think I’ve ______________ my shoulder and I can barely move it.
9. I ______________ my finger in the door and it’s throbbing like mad.
10. I ______________ this nick out of the side of my fingernail and now it’s infected.
These six pictures how common minor injuries you might see in an A&E
department. Describe the injury shown in each picture.
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3. INJURIES, ILLNESSES AND DISEASES
para medicina
Inglés
broken leg
bruising
cut finger
scalds/burn
scrape/graze
swelling of
the ankle
swollen face
Work in groups. Create a history for a nineteen-year-old patient, Gerhard/Gabriele
Schneider, who presents with one or more or the above injuries. Include details about
how the injury happened and where and how it happened.
*From McCarter, Sam, Oxford English for Careers: Medicine 2, Oxford University Press: 2010
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