What is Disease?

Disease, is the disruption of the function of an organ of the psyche or the whole organism.DefinitionSickness and health
Disease is often defined in contrast to health. However, health has also been defined as an ideal state of optimal well-being, and disease is not the only possible cause of poor health. [1] The transitions between "health" and "disease" are blurred. Much may ultimately be just a matter of perspective. Thus, the term has come into mood disorder for limitations of the physical or mental well-being without medical illness objectively value. On the other hand, can be defined as pathological states without subjective distress.
The normal function results from the regularity of life processes, to varying degrees, it includes the ability to adapt to changing internal and external conditions. Their human assessment has also a function of their norms.
As dysfunction disease can affect different areas of living being and develop in their interactions. Physiological functions are essential characteristic of life. Organisms exist in complex environments, and receive, renew and change through resistant material and energy exchange. Many types of organisms live in social contexts. Among the functions of life is also behavior. Suction. higher organisms have emotional features. The personhood and sociality of human works, depending on their cultural world.
The assignment of a specific disease organism to abstract "diseases" is considered important in the context of the development of therapeutic approaches and their administrative and economic conditions. A system is the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD 10). However, if there are abstract diseases in an ontological sense, is controversial.Medicine
For centuries, medicine strives to define and delineate the general term illness clearly. She has to grapple with a variety of illnesses and specific diseases.
Does a person have the feeling of being "sick", or someone who has already been recognized in a disease, it is called in medicine from a patient.
Individual complaints of a patient may be definable disease symptoms. Several symptoms that typically occur at the same time are called syndrome (symptom complex). Symptoms or symptom complexes that are traceable to a common cause (etiology), allow for the determination of a specific disease (Crohn's) in the sense of modern medicine. Seems clear that, if necessary or sufficient causes of disease are observed. Defined for infectious diseases such as specific pathogens are necessary, some congenital diseases are mandatory on certain molecular genetic changes. Often diseases are also not clearly attributable to detectable causes. Sometimes they are then defined by rule by way of present structural and functional phenomena. The totality of all phenomena typical of a disease is the disease (synonym entity) that can be observed in more or less different forms. The doctrine of the disease is the pathology.
For the detection of disease in individual patients appropriate tests (diagnostics) are required. Thus, findings are made, which can serve to make a diagnosis.Right
That transitions between "health" and "disease" are fluid, also raises legal issues. The term "disease" itself is content, hotly debated especially in social security area.
Disease within the meaning of social security law is a disorder of the physical or mental well-being, thus a deviation from the norm "health". (See § 120 para 1 1 General Social Security Act, according to which disease "an abnormal body or state of mind that makes the medical treatment necessary.")
The German Federal Court of Justice on 21 March 1958 defined legally, "disease is any disturbance of the normal condition or the normal activity of the body that healed, that can be eliminated or alleviated." According to a recent formulation in the German health and accident insurance under disease "an abnormal physical or state of mind that requires medical treatment and / or incapacity to work has "understood (BSGE 35, 10, 12 f.) Thus, the medical concept of disease is not congruent with the social law. Key criteria for assessing disease than in social law are:

    Need for treatment (not in age-related phenomena; cosmetic treatments that are purely aesthetic in nature (such as hair transplantation), very well, however, when a recognized medical necessity exists (such as correction of the nasal septum), treatment of scars)
    Visibility to the outside (eg discords of genetic values ​​do not meet the facts)
    Amelioration or prevention of exacerbations (treatment must be promising according to the principles of medical science)
The last point can be problematic for incurable diseases, since in such cases no improvement is possible.
Them in the social security disability law (§ 154 General Social Security Act) is to be deferred. It is suffering irreparable whose development has been completed and an opportunity to medical influence in terms of a cure, improvement or prevention of exacerbations is not possible. Complaints by accidents and their consequences can not be attributed in Switzerland from a legal perspective, the term "disease."Historical and cultural aspectsPortrait of Field Marshal Marquis Alessandro del Borro († 1656)
The classification, the degree of "normality" border changes a man, depends strongly on the culture and era. Thus, in the Renaissance obesity (adiposity), a status symbol, today it is generally regarded as pathological.Typical responses in severe disease
Especially serious illness must be processed not only cognitively but on emotionally. For dealing with a disease, there are quite typical modes of reaction:

    Retreat into childish dependency: This regression can both be good and save the energy reserves, but then culminate in excessive demand of attention and custody.
    Denial: The disease is denied, thus preventing a good deal with them.
    Rationalization and displacement: the problems of the disease are pushed to other causes and denies the illness as the cause.
    Anxiety reactions - depressive reactions

Systematics
 Nosology
Systematic classification of diseases is called nosology (pathology). The names of diseases, the delineation of individual diseases (entities) against each other and the classification of diseases evolve and change (see list of historical disease names). The modern classification of diseases in the medical disease model can be roughly related organ made by the main diagnostic groups (MDC Major Diagnostic Categories).
Allows a more precise classification, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), or for the oncology area according to the ICD-O.
Is oriented to the known or suspected causes of the division is

    Hereditary diseases (caused by heredity)
    Infectious diseases (caused by infection)
        Teething
    Accidents and injuries (caused by external influences)
    Poisoning, burns, burns or other damage caused by chemical or physical pollutants
    Degenerative diseases (caused by wear of organs or cells causes)
    Autoimmune diseases (the immune system fights healthy cells)
    Tumor diseases (cells degenerate and grow uncontrollably)
    Iatrogenic diseases (caused by treatment)
    Mental illness
    Social diseases
        Diseases of civilization (poor diet, lack of exercise, etc.)
        Deficiency diseases
    Diseases caused by food.
Properties considered statistically by itself increase the rate of occurrence of certain diseases to be solely responsible for this without their very nature, are so-called risk factors. A classic example of this is positive, the statistical correlation between the increase in blood pressure and the onset kardiovasculärer diseases mentioned.
A psycho-physical viewing and healing manner, taking into account the emotional and social causes as well as the personality and destiny of life of the patient tries to psychosomatic medicine. Outside of evidence-based medicine, other causes of illness to metaphysical contexts are accepted. With the social conditionality of disease and disease processes, as well as the state of health control, the busy medical sociology.Causes and courseEtiology and course of the disease
The causes of diseases in modern medicine from the healthy changes appreciably different parts of the body (and thus its function), so-called organ pathologies considered (→ Main article pathology, psychopathology and Phytopathology).
The causes of these changes can be divided into internal and external factors. Among the internal factors include the general aging process, hereditary diseases and inherited susceptibility / plants, embryonic malformations as well as mental illness. These are little influenced. In contrast, external factors such as social relationships, stress, diet, environmental conditions and pathogens are well influenced.
Disease leads - treated or untreated - to cure, remission, a relapse (recurrence or more), suffering or death.
Frequently used terms that describe the time course, are acute (sudden onset - eg flu), subacute (gradual start - eg hepatitis B), chronic (long course - for example, multiple sclerosis), Chronic Recurrent (always occurring - for example, "chronic" bronchitis) and fulminant and fulminant ("lightning" Employing and hard running - eg sepsis).Disease model
Under a disease model is defined as a scientific theoretical approach, with the aim to explain a disease in exemplary simplified form.

A discussion of models of disease has arisen out of the question, which is the objective difference between normal and abnormal, as morbid. This distinction usually does not affect the judgment of the patient himself, but that of his surroundings. It is directed at the supposedly sick and are the views of the next of kin and the social environment on disease again. It therefore also includes a sociological and epidemiological aspect that is in medical sociology and the social psychiatry of interest eg.
Another approach concerns the controversy between continuous and non-uniform treatment approach. The continuous approach states that a unified health explanatory principle sufficient for both healthy and sick people. The non-uniform principle states that for the sick run own special legal processes that require specialized treatment depending on the nature of the approved case. The call for a unified treatment principle goes back to the call by Ludolf Krehl that the doctor should not treat different diseases, but I tend to keep the patient as a person in the eye. This principle contributes greatly contribute to the humanization of medical treatment and the patient takes the social stigma of abnormal and incomprehensible.