MedTerm Prefixes

In this lesson we’re going to talk about prefixes for medical terms.

So before we go adding prefixes to medical terms we need to make sure that a combining form already has its parts in place. This means there needs to be a root or roots, with the right combining vowels, and a suffix. If these aren’t in place, your prefix isn’t going to make sense. It’s also really important to understand what prefix is due. Prefixes influence measurement, numbers, Direction, and position or location of the medical term.

Another really important part of prefixes is that sometimes roots or combining forms can serve as actual prefixes. If you look in this example, anterolateral, Antero is technically a  combining form. What’s important to know is that you can sometimes put these two together. So antero describes to the front, lateral describes to the side. So if a patient had an anterior lateral laceration of the right leg oh, that means that you would be able to find the laceration on the front and to the side of his leg.

Sometimes prefixes can serve as a measurement in describing the medical term. What we talk about measurements we usually are specific to Broad terms. For instance hyper is a measurement and it means high or excessive. You would see this in hyperglycemia. This means high or excessive amount of glucose in the blood. Hypo, is exactly the same thing in that it means low and it’s a measurement. So hypoglycemia refers to a low blood sugar, with hypo pertaining to the gross amount of sugar in the blood.

Prefixes can also be numbers. You can see in this list that they’re pretty straightforward and you’re probably familiar with a lot of these. Uni means one, by means two, tri means three and so on. Hemi means half, So let’s look at an example. Let’s look at the word hemilaminectomy. So using our rules, we always start with the suffix, which is ectomy. This means surgical removal of something. So this is a type of surgery. The lamina is a portion of the spinal cord usually associated with some sort of injury like a slipped disc or a pinched nerve.  if we add the root and the suffix together, a laminectomy is a surgery to the spine. Now Hemi means half, so what happens in this surgery is that a Part of the lamina is too removed to reduce pressure inside the spinal canal, which is where we get the word hemilaminectomy.

Now a or an can mean none or without, so it literally means zero. An example of this is apnea.  Apnea means no breathing, so the patient is taking zero breaths. Now let’s take a look at positions and direction.

Now that you’re looking at medical terms and positions in terms of the prefix, it’s important to understand that they’re relative. Meaning that there’s usually a comparison occurring. Let’s start by looking at the different position examples. So Supra means above, retro means behind, trans means through you, and Ultra means Beyond. Let’s look at the word retroperitoneal.  again, starting with the suffix -eal means pertaining to. Peritoneal means pertaining to the peritoneum which is a membrane inside the abdomen. Retroperitoneal means that whatever is occurring is happening behind the peritoneum. Just like the word transect. Ect refers to ectomy, or cutting out, and trans means through, so if something gets transected, it cuts completely through.

Now what’s  interesting about prefixes is that they can also be used to describe direction or location. We get a lot of the prefixes referring to direction or location from combining forms. This is where you get to double-dip a little bit. So you can use something like antero  as a prefix and combine it with another root. And while it may not be a true prefix, it serves as a prefix in the medical term

Just like with some of our other lessons in medical terminology we’re going to include several common medical terms to help you better understand the words that were talking about. So here are some common prefixes and I’m not going to go through all of these. But we can look at words like Brady, which means slow, as opposed to tachy, which means fast. Then they’re also things like macro and micro which means large and small, then you’ve got things like contra which means against. An example of this would be contralateral, which means toward the other side. Then there is obviously pre and post which means before and after, and then words like pseudo which means fake or false. Work to memorize some of these because we use a lot of them and normal everyday language, but understanding them helps you to break medical terms down.

Okay let’s recap. Prefixes help to give description to the combining form, and they also focus on measurement and numbers. They can also talk about position or direction, and they can also describe a relation to several different things. Also combining forms can be used as prefixes. They’re not true prefixes but they can serve as prefixes. And lastly make sure that you practice, some of these are extremely tough to memorize, but work to understand them so that you can better understand medical terminology.

And that’s it for our lesson on prefixes. Make sure you check out all the resources attached to this lesson. Now, go out and be your best self today, and as always, happy nursing!