Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Visual impairment
Visual impairment is loss of visual acuity, visual field, or both as a result of defect, disease, or injury to the organs of vision (eye, optic nerve, visual tract, and brain). Even with correction, ability to see is significantly below the level that allows normal visual access to information and the environment. The extent to…
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Visual efficiency disorders
Visual efficiency disorders consist of a variety of vision problems such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, teaming disorders, focusing disorders, and tracking disorders. The most common efficiency disorders are focusing, binocularity (eye teaming), and tracking. Near focusing and flexibility focusing are required for an individual to process visual information up close and to shift visual focus…
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Congenital varicella syndrome
When a pregnant woman contracts chicken pox (varicella), there is a 25% incidence of transmission of the infection to the fetus. However, a very small number of these babies will show evidence at birth that they were ever infected. Their condition is called congenital varicella syndrome (CVS).
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Usher syndrome
Usher syndrome is a rare autosomal-recessive disorder manifested primarily by sensorineural hearing loss and retinitis pigmentosa. Although others described the syndrome earlier, it is named for Charles Usher, a British ophthalmologist who emphasized the role of heredity in the disorder. The degree of hearing loss in most affected individuals is severe to profound. Retinitis pigmentosa…
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Urticaria pigmentosa
Urticaria pigmentosa (UP) is the most common form of mastocytosis, which is a disorder characterized by mast cell proliferation (increases in cells that contain histamine and heparin) and accumulation within various organs, most commonly the skin. It is a disease that produces skin lesions, intense itching, and hive formation at the site of the lesion…
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Tuberous sclerosis
Tuberous sclerosis is a dominantly inherited syndrome, with onset in the first decade of life, characterized pathologically by the presence of hamartomas in multiple organ systems. Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by the widespread development of distinctive tumors termed hamartomas. The clinical features of epilepsy, learning difficulties, and skin signs…
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Persistent truncus arteriosus
Persistent truncus arteriosus is a congenital heart defect associated with a high mortality rate. In normal fetal development the truncus arteriosus divides into the aorta and pulmonary artery. If the truncus arteriosus persists beyond the fetal stage, a single arterial trunk arises from the normally formed ventricles, and blood from both ventricles will mix, affecting…
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Trisomy 18
Trisomy 18 or Edwards syndrome, named for the researcher who first identified it, is an autosomal dominant chromosome ab¬ normality. The autosomes are the 22 pairs of non-sex chromosomes. A dominant gene is a gene that overrides the normal copy from the partner and has a 50% chance of being passed on. There are three…
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Tricho-rhino-phalangeal syndrome
Tricho-rhino-phalangeal syndrome (TRP) is a genetic ectodermal dysplastic disorder affecting multiple systems. Three types have been distinguished. All three types, however, share a common set of characteristic physical anomalies.
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Mild traumatic brain injury
A mild traumatic brain injury results from a change in brain functioning due to physical trauma with possible permanent sequelae. There are open head injuries, when the skull is penetrated, and closed head injuries, when the skull is not penetrated. After one head injury, the risk of a second injury is tripled; and after a…
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