I was rewatching an old video on YouTube and the guy was able to walk again after 10 months of practicing yoga and losing 140 lbs. If no one on earth can exactly predict when someone will die or if they’ll be able to walk again, how and why do doctors come up with these predictions?
https://youtu.be/qX9FSZJu448
In: Mathematics
There will always be outliers who defy expectation. However, statistically speaking, most aren’t so lucky. The doctor wants to give people an understanding of their likely future so that the patient may start to make informed choices about what they want to do.
To make these predictions, doctors would look at the person’s injuries and compare them to other similar cases. They know that most people who sustain certain types of injures tend not to be able to walk again. While occasionally someone might be truly lucky and get mobility back, the doctor’s responsibility is to inform the patient of their likely future so that they can adjust and cope accordingly.
As for predicting death, it is similar. Doctors would compare the stage of the patient’s terminal illness against other cases to get an early estimate. Due to all the studies that have been done on such illnesses, doctors know how long it typically takes a given terminal illness to kill someone after it reaches a certain stage. Following that, they would watch the patient to see how quickly the disease progresses for them, and possibly adjust that estimate.
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