n. · the working vocabulary of first aid, defined in plain English.
Glossary.
§ terms
- Anaphylaxis A severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction with airway, breathing or circulatory involvement.
- Asthma A reversible narrowing of the small airways in the lungs that makes breathing out hard, wheezy and slow.
- Bleeding Loss of blood from a damaged blood vessel, classified by the type of vessel as arterial, venous or capillary.
- Burns Tissue damage caused by heat, chemicals, electricity, friction or radiation, classified by depth and by the percentage of body surface involved.
- Cardiac arrest The sudden stopping of an effective heartbeat, leaving the casualty unresponsive and not breathing normally.
- Choking Sudden blockage of the upper airway by a foreign body, usually food, that stops air from reaching the lungs.
- Dehydration A loss of body water — and the salts dissolved in it — large enough to interfere with how the body works.
- Diabetes A long-term condition in which the body cannot keep blood-sugar levels in their normal range, leading to either hypoglycaemia (too low) or hyperglycaemia (too high).
- Drowning The process of breathing in liquid because the airway is below the surface of water — the leading cause of accidental death in Australian children under five.
- Envenomation Injury caused by venom injected into the body by a snake, spider, marine creature or insect.
- Eye injury Any damage to the eye or eyelid from a foreign body, a chemical, a blunt force or a penetrating object.
- Febrile convulsion A seizure triggered by a rapidly rising fever in a young child, usually between six months and five years of age.
- Fracture A break in a bone, ranging from a hairline crack to a complete separation of the two ends.
- Hyperthermia A dangerously high core body temperature caused by the body taking in or generating more heat than it can lose.
- Hypothermia A dangerously low core body temperature, where the body is losing heat faster than it can replace it.
- Nosebleed Bleeding from inside the nose, almost always from the small fragile blood vessels at the front of the nasal septum.
- Poisoning Harm caused by a substance taken into the body that interferes with how it works — by swallowing, breathing, absorbing through the skin, or injecting.
- Seizure A burst of abnormal electrical activity in the brain that briefly disrupts movement, awareness, or both.
- Shock A life-threatening failure of the circulation, where not enough blood is reaching the body's organs to keep them working.
- Spinal injury Damage to the bones, ligaments or spinal cord of the neck or back — serious because incorrect movement can turn a partial injury into paralysis.
- Stroke A sudden interruption of blood supply to part of the brain, killing brain cells within minutes — a time-critical medical emergency.
- Upper airway The passage from the nose and mouth down through the throat and voice box to the top of the windpipe — the part of the breathing system most likely to become blocked.