

Taking a Pediatric Exposure History

Course: WB 1905
CE Original Date: June 3, 2011
CE Renewal Date: June 3, 2013
CE Expiration Date: June 3, 2015
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Acute exposure A one-time exposure of relatively short duration.
Biomarker An identifiable change at the chemical, biochemical, or cellular level due to an exposure to an environmental toxicant.
Chronic exposure An exposure to a chemical or hazardous substance that occurs over a period of time.
Developmental stages Temporal intervals in distinct anatomical, physiological, behavioral, or functional characteristics that can contribute to potential differences in vulnerability to environmental exposures.
Dose The amount of a contaminant that is absorbed or deposited in the body of an exposed person for an increment of time. Total dose is the sum of doses received by a person from a contaminant in a given interval and resulting from interaction with all environmental media that contain the contaminant.
Macroactivity Highly general description of what a child does during a specific period of time or developmental stages - i.e., playing, school attendance, crawling, toddling, etc.
Microactivity A very detailed description of an activity that could lead to an exposure. Some examples of microactivities leading to childhood exposures are mouthing of objects and crawling on the floor with subsequent hand contact with dirt.
Microenvironment Location a child occupies for a specified period of time - e.g., outdoors on a lawn versus outdoors on a school playground.
Paraoccupational exposure The transmission of potentially toxic quantities of industrial agents from occupational settings to homes and residences is referred to as take-home contamination. Take-home contamination has been more vividly called “fouling one’s own nest.”
Pica The intentional ingestion of soil and other non-nutritive substances.
Poisoning A patient has a defined pattern of symptoms corresponding to toxic effects from a poisonous substance at a mid- to high level of exposure.
Toxicant A poisonous substance not derived from the metabolism of a living organism.
Toxicodynamics The study of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the action of a poison.
Toxin A poisonous substance produced by the metabolism of an organism, such as a spider, a snake, a scorpion, a plant, a fungus, or bacteria.
Toxicity Any adverse effect from a poisonous substance, whether the effect is subclinical or it takes the form of frank clinical symptoms of a poisoning.
Toxidrome A defined constellation of symptoms characteristic of a certain class of toxic exposure.


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