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Glossary of Terms 

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A.B.I	Acquired Brain Injury
A.B.P.P	American Board of Professional Psychologists
Abnormal Postural Tone	Greater than normal tone of muscles used to hold the body in ordinary positions such as sitting or standing.
Abscess	A localized collection of pus in a cavity.
Abstract Concept	Refers to a concept that is disassociated from any specific instance and may therefore be difficult to understand. Patients with cognitive deficits usually have difficulty with abstract concepts.
Abstract Thinking	A style of thinking in which language is interpreted conceptually. The ability to reason and to solve problems.
Acalculia	The inability to perform simple problems of arithmetic.
Acuity	Sharpness or quality of a sensation.
Acute Care	Care provided during the very early stages following injury, including surgery and intensive care. Focus is on the patient becoming medically stable.
Acute Rehabilitation Program	Primary emphasis on the early rehabilitation phase which usually begins as soon as a person is medically stable. The program is designed to be comprehensive and based in a medical facility with a typical length of stay of 2-3 months. Treatment is provided by an identifiable team in a designated unit.
Adiadochokinesia	Inability to stop one movement and follow it immediately with movement in the opposite direction
ADL	Activities of daily living. Routine activities carried out for personal hygiene and health (including bathing, dressing, feeding) and for operating a household.
Affective Disorders	Mental illness characterized principally by abnormalities in mood. The two principal categories are mania and depression.
Agnosia	Failure to recognize familiar objects although the sensory mechanism is intact. May occur for any sensory modality.
Agraphia	Inability to express thoughts in writing.
Akinetic Mutism	A condition of silent, alert-appearing, immobility that characterizes certain sub-acute or chronic states of altered consciousness. Sleep-wake cycles have been retained, but externally obtained spontaneous motor activity is lacking; patient appears to be aware but inactive. Exhibited by patients with high brain stem lesions.
Alertness	State of being watchful or ready.
Alexia	Inability to read.
Ambulate	To walk.
Amnesia	Lack of memory about events occurring during a particular period of time.
Anesthesiologist	A physician who administers anesthesia for surgery and special procedures. This physician usually meets with patients and family members before surgery.
Aneurysm	A balloon-like deformity in the wall of a blood vessel. The wall weakens as the balloon grows larger, and may eventually burst, causing a hemorrhage.
Anomia	Inability to recall names of objects. Patients with this problem often speak fluently but have to use other words to describe familiar objects.
Anosmia	Loss of the sense of smell.
Anoxia	A lack of oxygen. Cells of the brain need oxygen to stay alive. When blood flow to the brain is reduced or when oxygen in the blood is too low, brain cells are damaged.
Anterograde Amnesia	Inability to consolidate information about ongoing events. Difficulty with new learning
Anticoagulation	Process of "thinning the blood," Medication (Heparin, Coumadin) is used to slow down normal blood clotting and thus prevent blood clots from forming in the veins.
Anticonvulsant	Medication used to decrease the possibility of a seizure (e.g., Dilantin, Phenobarbitol, Mysoline, Tegretol).
Antidepressants	Drugs used to treat depression.
Apallic Syndrome	(See Persistent Vegetative State.) The behaviour that accompanies diffuse bilateral degeneration of the cerebral cortex that sometimes follows anoxic head injury. It describes patients with absent neocortical function but with relatively intact brain stem function.
Apathy	A lack of interest or concern.
Aphasia	Loss of the ability to express oneself and/or to understand language. Caused by damage to brain cells rather than deficits in speech or hearing organs.
Aphasia, Expressive	Inability to find or formulate the words to express oneself even though knowing what one wants to say.
Aphasia, Global	Severely limited residual ability to communicate with others. Includes both expressive and receptive aphasia.
Aphasia, Nonfluent	Characterized by awkward articulation, limited vocabulary, hesitant, slow speech output, restricted use of grammatical forms and a relative preservation of auditory comprehension.
Aphasia, Receptive	Problems in understanding what others attempt to communicate.
Aphasia, Subclinical	Refers to evidence of impaired linguistic processing on testing, in the absence of clinical manifestation on linguistic impairment.
Apraxia	Inability to carry out a complex or skilled movement not due to paralysis, sensory changes, or deficiencies in understanding.
Apraxia, Constructional	Inability to assemble, build, draw, or copy accurately; not due to apraxia of single movements.
Apraxia, Ideomotor	Deficit in the execution of a movement due to inability to access the instructions to muscles stored by previous motor experience.
Arousal	Being awake. Primitive state of alertness managed by the reticular activating system, extending from medulla to the thalamus in the core of the brain stem. Activates the cortex. Cognition is not possible without some degree of arousal.
Art Therapy	Use of art techniques such as painting, crafts and group activities to develop motor skills, perceptual abilities and self-esteem.
Arterial Line	A very thin tube (catheter) inserted into an artery to allow direct measurement of the blood pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in arterial blood.
Arterio-Venous Malformation	A "tangle" of blood vessels present from birth, which may be prone to bleeding.
Articulation	Movement of the lips, tongue, teeth and palate into specific patterns for purposes of speech.
Aspiration	When fluid or food enters the lungs through the wind pipe due to the failure of the voice box to close off tile trachea. Can cause a lung infection or pneumonia.
Associated Reaction	A non-purposeful movement that accompanies another movement (e.g., patient's arm may bend involuntarily when the patient yawns).
Attending Physician	The physician primarily responsible for the care of the patient, often a neurosurgeon.
Astereognosia	Inability to recognize things by touch.
Ataxia	A problem of muscle coordination not due to apraxia, weakness, rigidity, spasticity or sensory loss. Caused by lesion of the cerebellum or basal ganglia. Can interfere with a person's ability to walk, talk, eat, and to perform other self care tasks.
Atrophy	A wasting away or decrease in size of a cell, tissue, organ, or part of the body caused by lack of nourishment or loss of nerve supply.
Attention Span	The length of time one is able to concentrate on a task at hand.
Attention To Task	Ability to focus on a given activity.
Attention/Concentration	The ability to focus on a given task or set of stimuli for an appropriate period of time.
Attention/Concentration, Distractibility	Refers to the patient's inability to sustain attention. because of competing internal or external stimuli. Typically, the head injury survivor has decreased ability to inhibit inappropriate responses. For example, a restrained patient may focus more on his arm restraint than on a task presented by a therapist; a patient is asked to complete arithmetic problems may focus more on construction work taking place outside.
Attention/ Concentration, Arousal	The ability to respond consistently to sensory stimulation by eye opening, localizing, and tracking with head and eye movement. To assess a comatose patient's level of arousal one might determine if the patient brushes away a pinching hand; or, if the head turns to a voice or noise.
Attention/Concentration, Length	Refers to the amount of time a patient is able to focus on a given task. Complexity of task and patient fatigability will affect length of attention.
Audiologist	One who evaluates hearing defects and who aids in the rehabilitation of those who have such defects.
Augmentative And Alternative Communication	An area of speech-language pathology clinical practice which attempts are made to compensate (either temporarily or permanently) for severe expressive communication disorders.
Automatic Speech	Words said without much thinking on the part of the speaker, these may include songs, numbers and social communication; or, can be items previously learned through memorization. Spontaneous swearing by individuals who did not do so before their injury is another example.
Awareness, Level Of	Degree of acuity in perceiving internal and external stimuli.
Awareness	Conscious of stimulation, arising from within or from outside the person.

Click here for the printable "Glossary of Terms". 

Material for the glossary was provided by the Ontario Brain Injury Association (OBIA).