1.3 Cellular Pathophysiology

In the cellular pathophysiology unit, we learned about what causes a disease on a cellular basis. We found that the 5 things why a cell  would not function properly were Adaptation, Cell Injury , Cellular Death, Aging and Neoplasia. In this unit we focused on adaptation and Cell Injury.
Adaptation is defined as reversible changes in the number, size, phenotype, metabolic activity, or functions of cells in response to changes in their environment to prevent injury. This would occur if a cell was refers to changes made by a cell in response to environmental changes or injurious agents. If the cell is unable to adapt, the cell would then eventually die. There are four types of adaptive responses: Hypertrophy, Hyperplasia, Atrophy and Metaplasia. Hypertrophy is an increase in cell size which results in the size of an organ. Metaplasia is a reversible change in which one adult cell
type is replaced by another adult cell type. Shrinkage in the size of the cell by the loss of cell substance is known as atrophy. Hyperplasia is the increased cell numbers in response
to hormones and other growth factors which occurs in tissues whose cells are able to divide. When I am given many tasks to do all at one time, this is what I would compare to an injurious agent. Usually I stop what I am doing in order to have everything in my mind come together neatly for the best outcome. This is like Atrophy and how the cell size shrinks and how it loses its function. In this case it is reversible when all of my jobs are done well and in time which then brings me back to normal.