What’s the difference between a condition, disorder, disease and syndrome?
In: Biology
“I have a condition” “What kind” “A disorder” “Namely? “A disease” “What about syndrome?” “Mr incredible took care of that one”
This is how I as a normie would assume these to be used in hierarchy, though I accept them interchangeably, this waterfall just feels the most natural linguistically in most circumstances.
Not an expert, but my understanding is a condition is similar to a disorder in that it is some function of the body not working as intend. A syndrome is a collection of conditions that are associated with a specific cause and a disease is a response to an internal or external factor that causes some disorder.
In practice, they are all used interchangeably. Syndrome has a bit of a connotation towards a genetic condition that someone was born with. Condition is more vague and less pointed since it sounds more neutral.
I’ll give it the old ELI5 try – these terms are used to help medical professionals treat health issues by organizing them into categories.
condition – a name given to a know situation or set of health issues: “he has a concussion” or “heartbeat irregular” – it summarizes/categorizes the patients health issue by known symptoms displayed.
disorder – something isn’t working right but the patient displays predictable symptoms, but the exact cause may be less than fully understood. Perhaps predictable isn’t the right word as some disorders imply unpredictable behavior/symptoms/conditions….but at least you know what might happen from the name of the disorder.
disease – usually referring to a set of condition with a known CAUSE (often an outside influence) causing harm to the patient – a concussion is a condition, but Coronavirus Disease is a set of conditions caused by the COVID-19 virus.
syndrome – a very specific set of symptoms/conditions that often occur together, often indicating a disease (identifiable cause).
PLEASE expand or refine my old 5 minute try if you can ELI5 folks!
A disease (old french “des-aise”. Lack of ease/Lack of wellbeing) is something which causes you to feel bad which has a specific cause. Like an organ malfunction or illness.
A condition (short for health condition) is a generally used term that can mean a disease, disorder or any number of other health (physical or mental) malfunctions.
A disorder (word means “not order”): is a mental health condition, that results in an abnormal mood and/or behavior.
A syndrome (original words in greek “Syn”/”drome”. “Runs together”) is a collection of symptoms that usually appear together.
**Condition**
A health problem, usually with a known name. Someone knows that name, but they haven’t told you yet. It’s sometimes used in the media when someone doesn’t want to reveal the name of their disease
“They said they have some sort of heart condition that causes them to pass out. Oh, I just spoke to their doctor. They have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.”
**Disorder**
A health problem. When diseases are named as such, they often have no clear physical cause. It’s usually almost exclusive in psychiatry, sometimes to denote a class of health problems, sometimes to a specific kind. It can sometimes be used interchangeably with condition
“Eating disorder” = class
“Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” = specific kind
“Sleep disordered breathing”
**Disease**
A health problem with a known physical cause.
“Coronary artery disease” = plaque in arteries
“Addison disease” = adrenal glands not working
**Syndrome**
A collection of signs and symptoms that often are caused by multiple diseases, or no known disease. These are often described from a time in medicine in which the understanding of disease was not great. Confusingly, the names have stuck even when the cause is ultimately identified
“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” (AIDS) = a bunch of people dying with no immune system, named because no one knew it was caused by HIV at the time
“Down Syndrome” = collection of features seen in children described by someone named Down, but it’s now known to be caused by too many chromosomes
“Chronic fatigue syndrome,” which has now been renamed to “Myalgic encephalomyelitis” because there really has been a movement away from calling things syndromes and towards giving them specific disease names
“Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)” = babies suddenly dying. No one knows why, and it’s likely caused by a few different health problems not yet fully identified
Someone at the Universe of Hawaii has a simple page with a simple differentiation based on the DSM-IV (an older edition of the go-to manual for psychological/psychiatric diagnosis).
SYMPTOM
-refers to an observable behavior or state.
-there is no implication that an underlying problem necessarily exists or that there is a physical etiology.
-the simplest level of analyzing a presenting problem.
SYNDROME
-the next higher level of analysis
-this term is applied to a constellation of symptoms that occur together or co-vary over time.
-the term carries no direct implications in terms of underlying pathology.
-Whether, in fact, certain sets of symptoms co-vary with one another is an empirical question.
DISORDER
-like a syndrome, refers to a cluster of symptoms,
-but the concept includes the idea that the set of symptoms is not accounted for by a more pervasive condition.
-As with symptom and syndrome, there is no implication of etiology
DISEASE
-a disorder where the underlying etiology is known.
-It is the highest level of conceptual understanding.
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~heiby/overheads_classification.html
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