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Concepts__ In many cases, the terms disease, disorder, morbidity and illness are used interchangeably.[4] In some situations, specific terms are considered preferable. Disease The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs normal function, and is therefore associated with dysfunction of normal homeostasis.[5] Commonly, the term disease is used to refer specifically to infectious diseases, which are clinically evident diseases that result from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular organisms, and aberrant proteins known as prions. An infection that does not and will not produce clinically evident impairment of normal functioning, such as the presence of the normal bacteria and yeasts in the gut, or of a passenger virus, is not considered a disease. By contrast, an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease. Non-infectious diseases are all other diseases, including most forms of cancer, heart disease, and genetic disease. Illness Illness and sickness are generally used as synonyms for disease.[6] However, this term is occasionally used to refer specifically to the patient's personal experience of his or her disease.[7][8] In this model, it is possible for a person to have a disease without being ill (to have an objectively definable, but asymptomatic, medical condition), and to be ill without being diseased (such as when a person perceives a normal experience as a medical condition, or medicalizes a non-disease situation in his or her life). Illness is often not due to infection, but to a collection of evolved responses—sickness behavior by the body—that helps clear infection. Such aspects of illness can include lethargy, depression, anorexia, sleepiness, hyperalgesia, and inability to concentrate.[9][10][11] Disorder In medicine, a disorder is a functional abnormality or disturbance. Medical disorders can be categorized into mental disorders, physical disorders, genetic disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, and functional disorders. The term disorder is often considered more value-neutral and less stigmatizing than the terms disease or illness, and therefore is preferred terminology in some circumstances. In mental health, the term mental disorder is used as a way of acknowledging the complex interaction of biological, social, and psychological factors in psychiatric conditions. However, the term disorder is also used in many other areas of medicine, primarily to identify physical disorders that are not caused by infectious organisms, such as metabolic disorders. Medical condition A medical condition is a broad term that includes all diseases and disorders. While the term medical condition generally includes mental illnesses, in some contexts the term is used specifically to denote any illness, injury, or disease except for mental illnesses. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the widely used psychiatric manual that defines all mental disorders, uses the term general medical condition to refer to all diseases, illnesses, and injuries except for mental disorders.[12] This usage is also commonly seen in the psychiatric literature. Some health insurance policies also define a medical condition as any illness, injury, or disease except for psychiatric illnesses.[13] As it is more value-neutral than terms like disease, the term medical condition is sometimes preferred by people with health issues that they do not consider deleterious. On the other hand, by emphasizing the medical nature of the condition, this term is sometimes rejected, such as by proponents of the autism rights movement. The term medical condition is also a synonym for medical state, in which case it describes an individual patient's current state from a medical standpoint. This usage appears in statements that describe a patient as being in critical condition, for example. Morbidity Morbidity (from Latin morbidus, meaning "sick, unhealthy") is a diseased state, disability, or poor health due to any cause.[14] The term may be used to refer to the existence of any form of disease, or to the degree that the health condition affects the patient. Among severely ill patients, the level of morbidity is often measured by ICU scoring systems. Comorbidity is the simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions, such as schizophrenia and substance abuse. In epidemiology and actuarial science, the term "morbidity rate" can refer to either the incidence rate, or the prevalence of a disease or medical condition. This measure of sickness is contrasted with the mortality rate of a condition, which is the proportion of people dying during a given time interval. Syndrome A syndrome is the association of several medical signs, symptoms, and or other characteristics that often occur together. Some syndromes, such as Down syndrome, have only one cause; others, such as Parkinsonian syndrome, have multiple possible causes. In other cases, the cause of the syndrome is unknown. A familiar syndrome name often remains in use even after an underlying cause has been found, or when there are a number of different possible primary causes. Predisease Predisease is a type of disease creep or medicalization in which currently healthy people with risk factors for disease, but no evidence of actual disease, are told that they are sick. Prediabetes and prehypertension are common examples. Labeling a healthy person with predisease can result in overtreatment, such as taking drugs that only help people with severe disease, or in useful preventive measures, such as motivating the person to get a healthful amount of physical exercise.[15] Types__ Infectious diseases Contagious diseases Foodborne illness Foodborne illness or food poisoning is any illness resulting from the consumption of food contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, toxins, viruses, prions or parasites. Communicable diseases Non-communicable diseases Airborne diseases Lifestyle diseases A lifestyle disease is any disease that appears to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer, especially if the risk factors include behavioral choices like a sedentary lifestyle or a diet high in unhealthful foods such as refined carbohydrates, trans fats, or alcoholic beverages. Mental disorders Mental illness is a broad, generic label for a category of illnesses that may include affective or emotional instability, behavioral dysregulation, and/or cognitive dysfunction or impairment. Specific illnesses known as mental illnesses include major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to name a few. Mental illness can be of biological (e.g., anatomical, chemical, or genetic) or psychological (e.g., trauma or conflict) origin. It can impair the affected person's ability to work or study and harm interpersonal relationships. The term insanity is used technically as a legal term. Organic disease An organic disease is one caused by a physical or physiological change to some tissue or organ of the body. The term sometimes excludes infections. It is commonly used in contrast with mental disorders. It includes emotional and behavioral disorders if they are due to changes to the physical structures or functioning of the body, such as after a stroke or a traumatic brain injury, but not if they are due to psychosocial issues. Stages__ "Flareup" redirects here. For the Transformers character, see Flareup (Transformers). In an infectious disease, the incubation period is the time between infection and the appearance of symptoms. The latency period is the time between infection and the ability of the disease to spread to another person, which may precede, follow, or be simultaneous with the appearance of symptoms. Some viruses also exhibit a dormant phase, called viral latency, in which the virus hides in the body in an inactive state. For example, varicella zoster virus causes chickenpox in the acute phase; after recovery from chickenpox, the virus may remain dormant in nerve cells for many years, and later cause herpes zoster (shingles). Acute disease An acute disease is a short-lived disease, like the common cold. Chronic disease A chronic disease is one that lasts for a long time, usually at least six months. During that time, it may be constantly present, or it may go into remission and periodically relapse. A chronic disease may be stable (does not get any worse) or it may be progressive (gets worse over time). Some chronic diseases can be permanently cured. Most chronic diseases can be beneficially treated, even if they cannot be permanently cured. Flare-up A flare-up can refer to either the recurrence of symptoms or an onset of more severe symptoms. Refractory disease A refractory disease is a disease that resists treatment, especially an individual case that resists treatment more than is normal for the specific disease in question. Progressive disease Progressive disease is a disease whose typical natural course is the worsening of the disease until death, serious debility, or organ failure occurs. Slowly progressive diseases are also chronic diseases; many are also degenerative diseases. The opposite of progressive disease is stable disease or static disease: a medical condition that exists, but does not get better or worse. Cure A cure is the end of a medical condition or a treatment that is very likely to end it, while remission refers to the disappearance, possibly temporarily, of symptoms. Complete remission is the best possible outcome for incurable diseases. Scope__ Localized disease A localized disease is one that affects only one part of the body, such as athlete's foot or an eye infection. Disseminated disease A disseminated disease has spread to other parts; with cancer, this is usually called metastatic disease. Systemic disease A systemic disease is a disease that affects the entire body, such as influenza or high blood pressure. |
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