Degeneration is deterioration in the
medical
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practi ...
sense
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system rec ...
. Generally, it is the change from a higher to a lower form. More specifically, it is the change of
tissue to a lower or less functionally active form.
*True degeneration: when there is actual
chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...
change of the tissue itself.
*
Infiltration: when the change consists of the
deposit of
abnormal matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic par ...
in the tissues
*
Degenerative disease
See also
*
macular degeneration
*
neurodegenerative disease
References
Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary (Twenty-sixth Edition) ()
Medical terminology
{{med-stub