What’s the difference between a condition, disorder, disease and syndrome?
In: Biology
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!
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