In this series of posts, we’re looking at words in the news that are related to various work environments, with the goal of helping you move forward with your career. Health care has been in the news lately, and we’ve picked six vocabulary words to study:

• epidemic
• antibodies
• inflammation
• chronic
• dementia
• cognitive

In the last post, we discussed how the yearly influenza epidemics attack people, causing their immune systems to create antibodies to fight off the disease. A high fever is a frequent symptom, as the body’s temperature rises, trying to burn out the problem. On a smaller scale, a localized inflammation is the body’s high-temperature reaction to an infection from something like a cut or scrape.

The common but usually short-term inflammation of the mucous membranes in the nasal passages – that is, the runny nose you get with a cold or seasonal allergy – is something almost everyone has to deal with at some point. Most of us are able to get over a cold relatively quickly, and not all of us have allergies to pollen or dust. However, people with severe allergies may experience chronic inflammation. “Chronic” means something that lasts a long time, or comes back frequently, or both. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that can cause painful inflammation of the joints.

At this point in time, there is no cure for rheumatoid arthritis. Doctors and other health professionals can only treat the symptoms, and attempt to develop methods of preventing the worst symptoms from developing. Anyone considering entering the healthcare field must be prepared to deal with the fact that sometimes there’s nothing they can do to make things better for a patient, except keep them safe and comfortable. This is the case for many patients with dementia, an often non-reversible loss of brain function due to head trauma, disease, or old age. Although the word “dementia” comes from the Latin word demens, or “madness”, many symptoms of dementia are what we usually consider as part of the normal aging process: absent-mindedness, forgetting words or where things were left, slowing down physically and mentally.

It can be difficult dealing with a person who is experiencing a loss of cognitive skills. “Cognitive” refers to the thinking, aware, perceptive, logical part of your brain function. One of the problems with dementia is that a person who is losing their cognitive skills is also losing the ability to be aware that they’re losing those skills. Being a caregiver in a hospital or hospice situation, or caring for a family member at home, may require a great deal of patience and understanding on your part.

Whether you’re studying health-related vocabulary to improve your job prospects, or to help you understand the healthcare needs of your family, the Ultimate Vocabulary program gives you access to thousands of words and their definitions. Keep your mind sharp, and keep learning!