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What is the meaning haemophilia?
Haemophilia is a medical condition in which a person’s blood does not thicken or clot properly when they are injured, so they continue bleeding. COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary.
Why is it called haemophilia?
The word “hemophilia” consists of a prefix ” hemo-” meaning “blood” and a suffix “-philia” meaning ” attraction to”. Thus the whole meaning of the term means ” a condition of attraction to blood”.
How do you explain hemophilia to a child?
Hemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder. Children with hemophilia can’t stop bleeding because they don’t have enough clotting factor in their blood. Clotting factors are needed for blood to clot. Blood clots to prevent excessive bleeding.
What is hemophilia A and B?
Hemophilia A and B are inherited in an X-linked recessive genetic pattern, so males are commonly affected while females are usually carriers of the disease. Hemophilia A is caused by a deficiency of clotting Factor VIII, while hemophilia B (also called Christmas disease) results from a deficiency of Factor IX.
How does a person get hemophilia?
Hemophilia is caused by a mutation or change, in one of the genes, that provides instructions for making the clotting factor proteins needed to form a blood clot. This change or mutation can prevent the clotting protein from working properly or to be missing altogether. These genes are located on the X chromosome.
Is hemophilia from inbreeding?
Though rare in the general population, the frequency of the mutated allele and the incidence of the disorder was greater among the royal families of Europe due to the high levels of royal inbreeding. A case in which the presence of hemophilia B had a particularly significant effect was that of the Romanovs of Russia.
At what age is hemophilia diagnosed?
In the United States, most people with hemophilia are diagnosed at a very young age. Based on CDC data, the median age at diagnosis is 36 months for people with mild hemophilia, 8 months for those with moderate hemophilia, and 1 month for those with severe hemophilia.
Can hemophilia go away?
People with hemophilia are born with the disorder. You cannot catch it from someone else. It lasts all of your life and it will not go away. Hemophilia occurs mainly in males but females can carry the gene that causes it and may or may not have bleeding problems.
Why Haemophilia B is called Christmas disease?
Hemophilia B is also known as Christmas disease. It is named after the first person to be diagnosed with the disorder in 1952, Stephen Christmas. As the second most common type of hemophilia, it occurs in about 1 in 25,000 male births and affects about 4,000 individuals in the United States.
How does hemophilia affect the person who has it?
In this system hemophilia mainly affects the joints of the body. When someone damages tissue that surrounds a joint, the tissue will bleed but will coagulate and form a bruise. When a person with hemophilia damages this tissue, they will bleed excessively leading to blood pooling in their joints (Hemarthrosis).
What are the signs of hemophilia?
The major signs of hemophilia are excessive bleeding and easy bruising. The extent of bleeding depends on how severe the disease is. Children with mild hemophilia may not show signs unless they experience excessive bleeding from a dental procedure, an accident or surgery.
What are the risk factors of hemophilia?
However, recent evidence suggests that hemophilia patients can suffer from atherosclerosis, or plaques in the arteries, at a similar rate as the general population. Furthermore, risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease, such as hypertension, or high blood pressure, are frequently present in men with severe hemophilia.
What are the effects of hemophilia?
Hemophilia mainly affects joints and muscles causing spontaneous bleeding after an injury or cut. Person with hemophilia can experience extended bleeding along with bruising leading to inflamed joints. Digestive problems and abdominal bleeding are the common concerns in people with hemophilia.