Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of anxiety disorder. It can occur after going through an extreme emotional trauma that involved witnessing the threat of injury and/or death to the individual or loved ones. PTSD when manifested in severe physical...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a problem that affects a child’s nervous system and growth and development. It usually shows up during a child’s first 3 years of life. A child with ASD may have problems with the structure of the brain or with certain chemicals in...

The International Association for the Study of Pain states: “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” Chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disabling illness that affects the brain and spinal cord. It usually gets worse over time. Nerve cells are surrounded by a layer of insulation called myelin. Myelin helps transmit nerve impulses. In multiple sclerosis, the myelin sheath...

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder. People who have insomnia have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. As a result, they may get too little sleep or have poor quality sleep. They may not feel refreshed when they wake up. Insomnia can be acute (short-term)...

The human immunodeficiency virus is a retrovirus that invades cells in the human immune system, making it highly susceptible to infectious diseases. More than 600,000 Americans have died from HIV/AIDS and over one million US citizens are living with the disease,...

Hepatitis C is a viral disease of the liver that affects an estimated four million Americans. Symptoms associated with chronic Hepatitis C typically include fatigue, depression, joint pain and liver impairment, including liver cancer and cirrhosis. Hepatitis C is a...

Glaucoma is a disease and eye condition in which the optic nerve becomes damaged over time, reducing side vision and sometimes causing blindness. One cause of optic nerve damage is higher-than-normal pressure within the eye (intraocular pressure or IOP). The only cure...

A migraine is a recurrent throbbing or pounding feeling ranging from moderate to severe intensity. Usually felt on just one side of the head, it can occur anywhere on the head, neck or face and is often accompanied by vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light and...

Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancer develops when the body’s normal control mechanism stops working. Old cells do not die and instead grow out of control, forming new, abnormal cells. Cancer may occur anywhere in the body. In women,...

Cachexia is weight loss, muscle atrophy, fatigue, weakness and significant appetite loss in a person who is not trying actively to lose weight. The formal definition of cachexia is the loss of body mass that cannot be reversed nutritionally. Even if the affected...

Arthritis is a general term for conditions that affect the joints and surrounding tissues. Joints are places in the body where bones come together, such as the knees, wrists, fingers, toes and hips. The two most common types of arthritis are osteoarthritis and...

Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that causes large numbers of nerve cells in the brain to die, is a type of dementia and causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior. Symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, becoming severe enough to interfere...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of...