Category: Oa-Oq

A hematoma (collection of blood) in the occipital region (at the back of the head). An occipital hematoma may be either subdural or epidural. In an occipital epidural hematoma, the bleeding occurs between the skull and the dura (the brain cover). The bleeding is from an injury to a vein or a branch of the posterior meningeal artery. Occipital epidural hematoma is often caused by a full-on blow to…

The bone that forms the rear and rear bottom of the skull.

1. Pertaining to the occiput, the back of head.2. Located near the occipital bone as, for example, the occipitallobe of the brain.

The principle of scientific or, in medicine, diagnostic parsimony or “unitarianism.” In medicine, a clinician would like to be able to use Occam’s razor and come up with a unifying diagnosis that will explain all of the patient’s problems. “Although we generally like to invoke Occam’s razor, for some patients we cannot follow the rule of diagnostic…

Mentally dulled. Head trauma may obtund a person.

Blockage of a passageway. See, for example: Airway obstruction; Intestinal obstruction.

The art and science of managing pregnancy, labor, and the puerperium (the time after delivery).

A physician who specializes in obstetrics.

A psychiatric disorder characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions, such as cleaning, checking, counting, or hoarding. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), one of the anxiety disorders, is a potentially disabling condition that can persist throughout a person’s life. The individual who suffers from OCD becomes trapped in a pattern of repetitive thoughts and behaviors that are senseless and…

Failure by the observer in a study or test to measure accurately, resulting in error. Inter-observer variation is the amount of variation between the results obtained by two or more observers examining the same material. Intra-observer variation is the amount of variation one observer experiences when observing the same material more than once.