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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Related concepts

The terms disease, disorder, medical condition are often used interchangeably. There is no agreed-upon universal distinction between these terms, though some people do make distinctions in particular contexts.
Medical usage sometimes distinguishes a disease, which has a known specific cause or causes (called its etiology), from a syndrome, which is a collection of signs or symptoms that occur together. However, many conditions have been identified, yet continue to be referred to as "syndromes." Furthermore, numerous conditions of unknown etiology are referred to as "diseases" in many contexts. Refractory diseases do not respond to therapy by overcoming the resistance to drugs.
Illness, although often used to mean disease, can also refer to a person's perception of their health, regardless of whether they in fact have a disease. A person without any disease may feel unhealthy and simply have the perception of having a disease. Another person may feel healthy with similar perceptions of perfectly good health. The individual's perception of good health may even persist with the medical diagnosis of having a disease; for example, such as dangerously high blood pressure, which may lead to a fatal heart attack or stroke.
Pathology is the study of diseases. The subject of systematic classification of diseases is referred to as nosology. Its cause is referred as its etiology. The broader body of knowledge about human diseases and their treatments is medicine. Many similar (and a few of the same) conditions or processes can affect non-human animals (wild or domestic). The study of diseases affecting animals is veterinary medicine.
Disease can be thought of as the presence of pathology, which can occur with or without subjective feelings of being unwell or social recognition of that state. Illness as the subjective state of "unwellness" can occur independently of, or in conjunction with, disease or sickness (with sickness the social classification of someone deemed diseased, which can also occur independently of the presence or absence of disease or illness (c.f. subjective medical conditions). Thus, someone with undetected high blood pressure who feels to be of good health would be diseased, but not ill or sick. Someone with a diagnosis of late-stage cancer would be diseased, probably feeling quite ill, and recognized by others as sick. A person incarcerated in a totalitarian psychiatric hospital for political purposes could arguably be then said to not be diseased, nor ill, but only classified as sick by the rulers of a society with which the person did not agree. Having had a bad day after a night of excess drinking, one might feel ill, but one would not be diseased, nor is it likely that a boss could be convinced of the sickness.

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