Top 50 Medical Signs and Symptoms You Need to Know!

Medical Signs and Symptoms

Medical signs and symptoms always get tested on the PTCB exam. Pharmacy technicians are healthcare professionals and must know the terminology that comes with dealing with patients and their concerns on a daily basis. Here, we review the top symptoms and signs you need to know.

There are two great ways to help you learn medical signs and symptoms:

First, create flashcards. Rather than memorizing the list below from scratch, place medical signs and symptoms on one side of a flashcard and its meaning on the other side. Periodically flick through the cards and you’ll be surprised how fast you commit these symptoms to memory.

Second, think about the etymological roots of the word. In other words, many of these medical symptoms have Latin or Greek roots. For instance, one of the easiest and most widespread is “hypertension”, which refers to high blood pressure. The prefix, “Hyper” derives from the Greek for “over, excess, exaggeration”.

Similarly, any word that contains “hyper” at the beginning refers to something that is over the normal value. “Hyperventilation” refers to “excessive breathing”, for example. There are many others you can learn. The opposite of “hyper” is “hypo”. Examples include hypotension and hypokalemia (low blood potassium levels). 

The more of these medical prefixes and suffixes you learn, the easier it becomes to work out what the word means. It also has the advantage of giving you the opportunity to eliminate wrong answers in a multiple-choice question – increasing your odds of selecting the correct answer.

With these tips in mind, let’s turn our attention to some must-know medical symptoms that all pharmacy technicians should know. Again, you will be tested on these terms in the PTCB exam.

It’s essential that you take the time to sit down and commit these symptoms to memory.

List of Medical Symptoms

Final Thoughts

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list – but it does feature many of the most common medical signs and symptoms you will come across during your career as a pharmacy technician.

During the PTCB exam, you should anticipate questions that ask about these kinds of signs and symptoms. Whilst you are not expected to know every sign and symptom, you should know the most common and be able to work out what a symptom may be referring to.

Check back to our blog at PTCB Test Prep soon for more content on medical signs and symptoms and the must-know facts you need to learn to maximize your result on exam day.