Category: Li-Lo

An arm or a leg.

An hallucination in which things, people, or animals seem smaller than they would be in real life. Lilliputian refers to the “little people” who lived (fictionally) on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels. The term “Lilliputian hallucination” was coined by John Todd, an English psychiatrist (1914-1987) who also called it the Alice in…

A feeling you are “going to faint.” Lightheadedness is medically distinct from dizziness, unsteadiness, and vertigo.

Not to be confused with a discharge of atmospheric electricity, lightening refers to the sensation that a pregnant woman feels when the baby drops. This is the time when the presenting (lowermost) part of the fetus descends into the maternal pelvis. Lightening classically occurs 2 to 3 weeks before labor begins. However, it may not occur in women who have…

Material used to tie something in surgery. Ligatures are used to tie off blood vessels, and they may be made of silk, gut, wire, or other materials.

The risk of developing a disease during ones lifetime or dying of the disease. The estimated lifetime risk of developing diabetes for individuals born in 2000 in the US is 32.8% for males and 38.5% for females. Women who inherit mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene are at an 82% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. The lifetime risk…

A disease associated with the way a person or group of people lives. Lifestyle diseases include atherosclerosis, heart disease, and stroke; obesity and type 2 diabetes; and diseases associated with smoking and alcohol and drug abuse. Regular physical activity helps prevent obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, colon cancer, and premature mortality.

A social worker trained in psychotherapy who helps individuals deal with a variety of mental health and daily living problems to improve overall functioning. A social worker usually has a master’s degree in social work and has studied sociology, growth and development, mental health theory and practice, human behavior/social environment, psychology, research methods. Abbreviated L.C.S.W.

1. Sexual drive. 2. In psychoanalysis, the psychic energy from all instinctive biological drives. Libido in Latin means “desire, longing, fancy, lust, or rut.” Although the adjective libidinous, meaning lustful, has been used in English for 500 or so years, libido only entered the language in 1913, thanks to Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts who applied the term to…