Jennifer L. Dorsey

What makes up the inside of your body, from cells to organs and everything in between, lends itself to an abundance of body part-related medical terms. All the root words and combining forms can morph into all kinds of different words that explain everything from everyday common conditions and procedures to pathology and pharmacology.

Grasping medical terminology starts with knowing the body’s systems, recognizing medical root words commonly used, understanding the Greek influence in medical terminology, and learning those pesky hard-to-spell medical words.Your Body’s SystemsYour body is made up of many systems, each having their own vital parts that work together.

Each individual part of the respiratory system is equally important. So, you will need to know the medical terminology associated with respiration. The nose without the pharynx or the lungs without the bronchi would be nothing more than spare parts, like on an old junker in a garage. Similarly, the parts of medical terms must coexist and work together to help you understand their meanings.

Pathology is a scary medical term, and for good reason. Pathology is the study of disease as it affects body tissue and function. Some conditions of the heart and lymph system are more serious and more risky than others. Some serious pathological conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels include Aneurysm, a local widening of an artery, may be due to weakness in the arterial wall or breakdown of the wall due to atherosclerosis.

You need to know the medical terminology for nervous conditions. Because the nervous system is involved in so many aspects of your body’s function, the conditions that affect it can have long-lasting implications on all bodily systems. Common nervous conditions Let’s take a look at some of the pathological conditions pertaining to the central nervous system: Aphasia involves loss or impairment of the ability to speak.

Once you know the specific parts of the cardiovascular and lymphatic systems a bit better, it’s time to put your medical terminology expertise into practice. Here’s a list of cardio roots, prefixes, and suffixes. It also gives an example medical term for each. Root Word What It Means Example Aort/o Aorta Aortic Angi/o Vessel Angiogram Arteri/o Artery Arteriosclerosis Arteriol/o Arteriole Arteriolitis Ather/o Yellow plaque or fatty substance Atherosclerosis Atri/o, atri/a Atrium Atrioventricular Cardi/o Heart Cardiomegaly Coron/o Heart Coronary Ox/o, ox/i Oxygen Oximeter Phleb/o Vein Phlebitis Pulmon/o Lung Pulmonary Scler/o Hardening Sclerotherapy Thromb/o Clot Thrombus Valv/o, valvul/o Valve Valvular Vas/o Vessel Vasoconstriction Ven/o Vein Venotomy Venul/o Venule Venulitis Ventricul/o Ventricle Ventricular Prefix or Suffix What It Means Example Brady Slow Bradycardia Tachy Fast Tachycardia -graph Instrument used to record Electrocardiograph -graphy Process of recording Electrocardiography -gram Picture or finished record Electrocardiogram Check out this list of lymphatic roots and suffixes.

Get ready. The sensory systems use a lot of medical terminology, including root words, prefixes, and suffixes, and with good reason. Consider that this set of systems includes some delicate and sophisticated body parts: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin. It’s no wonder that you need a lot of combining forms and roots to fully describe the wonders of the senses.

The roots, as always, are essential medical terminology knowledge because once you master these roots (those good ol’ Greek and Latin ones, that is), you can break down any skeletal-related word and discover its meaning. Once you’ve gotten to know the specific parts of the skeletal system a bit better, it’s time to put your expertise into practice by breaking down the root words into meanings and useful applications.