Primary care
A patient’s main source for regular medical care, ideally providing continuity and integration of health care services. All family physicians, and many pediatricians and internists, practice primary care. The aims of primary care are to provide the patient with a broad spectrum of preventive and curative care over a period of time and to coordinate all the care that the patient receives.
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In insurance parlance, a physician who is chosen by or assigned to a patient and both provides primary care and acts as a gatekeeper to control access to other medical services.
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After mealtime. A postprandial rise in the blood glucose level is one that occurs after eating.
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Persons who have had polio may develop newly progressive fatigue, pain, and weakness 15 or more years after recovery from poliomyelitis. In some cases, muscle atrophy (muscle wasting) also occurs as part of PPS. In most cases, however, new symptoms are not due to progression of old polio but to a superimposed second condition, such […]
- Primary immunodeficiency disease
A disorder caused by an inherited flaw in the immune system that increases the susceptibility to infections. Primary immunodeficiency diseases are unlike secondary or acquired immune deficiency diseases, which are caused by infectious, chemical or radiological agents. AIDS is a prototype of an acquired immune deficiency disease. It has been estimated that there are 100 […]
- Primary liver cancer, adult
A tumor in which the cancer starts during adulthood in cells in the liver. Also called hepatocellular carcinoma. Primary liver cancer is different from cancer that has metastasized (spread) from another place in the body to the liver. The signs and symptoms may include a hard lump just below the rib cage on the right […]