Why don't they have simpler names for brain disorders, where perhaps even the person suffering the disorder might be able to remember the term themself?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨over_clox@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

This question comes from watching the TV right now, and they’re talking about Bruce Willis. I feel bad for him, I really do…

Bruce Willis apparently has what they call Frontotemporal Dementia. That’s a tounge twister mouthful for most average people, I can only assume Mr. Willis probably can’t even remember the name of his own condition…

Why isn’t there a ‘patient-friendly’ easy to remember name for disorders that literally affect a person’s brain and memory?

Like shit, I bet most people wouldn’t know what polytetrafluoroethylene is, but they gave everyone a simple name to know it by, teflon.

So, why don’t they have simpler terms for brain disorders so the suffering patient might be able to talk to their own doctor privately…?

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IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That’s a type of dementia.

So the answer the question is they do.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Yes, I get that. The word dementia itself has 3 syllables, they can’t come up with a shorter and easier to remember and speak 2 syllable version?
  
  They shortened polytetrafluoroethylene down to 2 syllables, so why not help those suffering brain disorders and memory issues?
  
  You ever ask a person suffering Alzheimer’s how to actually spell their own condition? They’ll probably be either like ‘old timers’ or just a frustrated ‘fuck you’
  
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  - DemBoSain@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    They shortened the name of PTFE to Teflon because they wanted to sell it. Once there’s a market for frontotemporal dementia it will get a short name too.
    
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  - scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Do you have much experience with people with Alzheimer’s? It’s not a question of keeping the spelling simple. And anyway what is this scenario where any damn thing depends on their ability to spell their clinical condition?
    
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    People with alzheimers don’t know they have alzheimers. That’s kinda the whole issue of the disease.
    
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howrar@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The fewer syllables you use, the fewer words you can make. There are too many disorders out there to give them all simple names in an unambiguous way.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Also, the fewer syllables that people suffering brain/memory issues, the easier it is for them to communicate.
  
  Nobody expects a person with brain problems to remember the entire medical encyclopedia, but it would make it quite a bit easier to shorten the most common brain disorders, where the suffering person might be able to remember and say it on their own.
  
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  - BussyCat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    He has dementia which is an easy enough word for most people to be able to say. If you want to know the location of the dementia it’s in the frontotemporal area of the brain. But why that complex word well the front of the brain is called the frontal lobes which is a fairly logical name then the temporal lobe is the part that’s near your temples which is also kind of logical.
    
    Historically medicine has been bad about being less specific with names and instead just naming things after people which while they are easier to say don’t actually describe what’s happening
    
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cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Is “senile” not simple enough for you? The problem is, it’s maligned because its too loosely applied and becomes used as an insult. So it’s really a no-win scenario. Make it too simple and it becomes clinically useless and people will throw it around like an insult, make it too complex and it becomes only useful in clinical settings and average people can’t remember it. Is there a middle ground? I’m not sure. Alzheimer’s and dementia/demented are kind of in the middle, but they both get used inappropriately and are clinically useless, so they end up being a worst of both worlds.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  You do make a bit of a point there, it really does seem like a ‘no-win’ scenario…
  
  Sigh, just brainstorming a thought towards trying to assist disabled people a little better. 🤷
  
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  - cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Nothing wrong with asking the question and I’m sorry if my response sounded dismissive or hostile, I actually think you asked a great question and your heart is definitely in the right place. I think we should do a lot more discussion and education around brain diseases and brain aging, if we spent as much time trying to understand how natural intelligence works as we do how artificial intelligence works these days, maybe we’d have a lot less chaos in the world.
    
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TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Doctors call it “pharyngitis”, because they need to be specific in their documents. Normal people just call it “sore throat”, because that’s close enough and easy to understand. Same thing should apply to various brain disorders too.

If you aren’t writing to medical professionals, go with whatever description you understand better. It’s going to be easier for everyone involved.

If you’re in America, you should look up the relevant TLA and use that instead. Every American seems to be born with the innate ability to know all of them, so it’s just as good as using the easily understandable two word description.

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solrize@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It’s worse, e.g. aibohphobia (the fear of palindromes). Sufferers can’t seek treatment because they’re afraid to even say its name.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Interesting, I wasn’t aware of such a condition.
  
  Thank you for sharing 👍
  
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  - solrize@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It’s a joke, in case that wasn’t obvious.
    
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- garbagebagel@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’m genuinely sorry for the people who suffer from that but good god that is funny.
  
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SkaraBrae@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Part of the problem with dementia is that short term memory loss and aphasia are two of the most common early symptoms. It’s not because it’s a difficult word, it is because their brain no longer has the capacity to function that way. It wouldn’t matter what you called it, they still may not be able to learn it or remember it: the part of the brain that used to do that for them may no longer be accessible.

Most people don’t realise that dementia is terminal. It is a gradual cognitive and physical decline that results in death.

The Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at University of Tasmania has an open course on Understanding Dementia that is really good, and free, if anyone is interested in learning more.

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Berttheduck@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This is a big problem with medicine in general. Medicine is unfortunately very much an old white man’s club, it’s getting better slowly, but all the knowledge and the way it is taught comes from that old white guy standard.

Medical terminology is complex because medicine is complex. There is definitely an element of being part of an exclusive club but there is also communicating lots of information quickly and efficiently.

Frontotemporal dementia describes a specific set of symptoms and if you are medically trained tells you most everything you need to know about what is happening. As opposed to the patient is a bit confused or sees things sometimes which could be many different things.

The language and how diagnoses are communicated are really important, a good medic should tell the patient their diagnosis with the medical words but should explain what those mean in as much detail as the patient wants.

Most patients are able to understand dementia even if the frontotemporal bit doesn’t make sense to them.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Official medical terminology tends to be based off of Latin. How many people do you know that speak Latin?
  
  Benadryl is the consumer friendly name for diphenhydramine hydrochloride. And yes I just pulled those letters out of my ass, I learned long ago that brand name Benadryl is expensive, but far cheaper alternatives exist.
  
  I guess that is sort of the opposite of my thought though, my point is that important things should be easier to remember, especially those with brain/memory issues. Just because I can remember and spell long and complicated words, doesn’t mean everyone else can…
  
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  - Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I would counter that the medical term is descriptive. Tell anyone with medical/medicine-related education someone has frontotemporal dementia and they know what is going on with the patient and what bodypart is affected. We can simplify with just “dementia” or a simpler term but you loose the specific meaning. Just like cancer is a two syllable simple word but a proper diagnosis includes way more information and has a more difficult term related. Equally, while the layman may prefer teflon and benadryl, the chemical/scientific name tells a trained person exactly what they are dealing with without having to look anything up, and does not suffer from different names across languages/borders. You cannot force simpler names as they will not be used in the medical/scientific community, so only if a disease is common enough to enter most peoples vocabulary will they come up with simpler terms or remember the term easily.
    
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  - Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    There are too many terms. If you simplified every medical term you’d end up with too many words that were almost identical but meant very different conditions.
    
    I see it like thinking you could compress all possible number strings to a simpler number that’s easier to remember.
    
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  - paraplu@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    You don't need to speak Latin to notice common roots and get a gist for what a term means.
    
    If you're actually in a position where it's useful to distinguish one type of dementia from another, having a meaning that's linked to what the symptoms are may help you remember both name and symptoms.
    
    If you're not a medical professional, remembering either name or symptoms for specific types of dementia is unlikely to be useful.
    
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unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Im sure there are plenty of abbreviations people make up for their disorders. While one person might be okay with it, others might see it as a slur of sorts. I worked with someone with down syndrome that called himself and his similarily affected friends “downies” but you can be fucking sure as hell that others might be very offended by that.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That’s exactly what I mean, standardize some shorthand versions of mental/memory disorders where perhaps even the sufferer might even be able to remember, speak and/or spell it out, standardized across all of the medical community.
  
  Hey, the chemical industry had no problem making teflon a standardized name, everyone knows it by just those 2 syllables…
  
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  - Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Isn’t teflon a brand name? Not standardized, just capitalized.
    
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Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
couple more examples for you that aren’t just about how complex the word is :

Stutterers : good luck saying this word while you stutter.

Dyslexia : good luck spelling this word.

Lisp : yeah, that S is never going to hit the mark.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Hey, I can spell sexdaily!
  
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MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Just call it: “CRS”… can’t remember shit.

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  My elders call that CRAFT…
  
  Can’t Remember A Fucking Thing
  
  Sad chuckles…
  
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  - MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Good enough.
    
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