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• Disease is known as something that causes a disturbance structurally and functionally and is harmful to an organism.
• Pathology – study of disease

  Pathologist is a person who classifies the dieases by studying their structure

  Symptoms – subjective problems (pain/weakness)

  Signs – objective problems (swelling and redness)
• Chronic and acute diseases.

  Chronic – a disease that become bad over a long time (atherosclerosis/cancer)

  Acute – a disease that becomes worse quickly (heart attack)
• There are 5 types of diseases – congenital and heriditary, neoplastic, inflammatory, metabolic and degenerative diseases.
• These are developmental disturbances. Lead to abnormalities in genes and chromosomes. This is when both genetic and environmental factors interact.

  Haemophilia (hereditary) and german measles (congenital)
• Inflammatory diseases – when body reacts to injury through inflammation. Examples are allergic reactions (hay fever), autoimmune diseases (diabetes type 1) and bacteria.
• Degenerative diseases – when tissue and organs worsen due to aging

  Osteoporosis, osteoarthiritis.
• Metabolic diseases – metabolic processes are disturbed. Hypo/hyper thyroidism

  
  

  Neoplastic diseases – uncontrolled cell growth (benign or malignant) – cancer.
• Diagnosis - determining the nature and cause of the disease.

  3 ways to diagnose a person is through clinical history, physical examination and differential diagnosis.

  Prognosis – the ultimate result of the disease.

  Treatment – there are 2 types of treatment: specific and symptomatic.

  Specific treatments – treats the cause of the disease

  Symptomatic treatment – relieves just the symptoms but not the actual disease itself.
• There are 5 ways in taking clinical history for diagnosis

  current illness history: when and how the disease came?

  medical history: general health information of the person (any allergies?)

  social history: Lifestyle and health habits

  family history: any hereditary disease running in the family

  symptom review: checking for other symptoms other than the disease causing one.
• Physical examination – note abnormalities correlating with symptoms as well as other history and focus on areas of the body that are affected by the disease

  Differential diagnosis – done through physician second opinion. Narrowing the cause and type of disease after lab tests and understanding the different diseases due to same symptoms.
• Diagnostic tests – tests to see if there are any early/late stage disease that can be treated

  This is done by blood test, cytological smear and urine tests.
• Lab tests – usually for urine/blood tests to see any unusual concentration of a substance caused by a disease.

  Used for organ function testing, antibiotic response, see concentration of enzymes in blood/urine and see any disease causing organism.
• Genetic testing – helps to plan future pregnancies. It can also help to see carriers of genetic diseases wither dominant or recessive
• Other tests are radioactivity and electrical activity

  The electrical activity (ECG for the heart) – measures the body functions that are using electrical activity

  Radioisotopes – helps to see organ function by using radioisotopes. Can be used to test thyroidism (hypo/hyper) by giving radioactive iodine.
• Endoscopy – the use of flexible objects with lens and light to check the internal structures of the body and their functions. Can be used for surgery – laproscopy.
• Ultrasound – can produce images by using and reflecting high frequency sound waves. Can be used for pregnancy
• X ray  - helps to detect diseases by giving high radiation at small amounts to produce images. This can also enter the tissue depending on their density. It can also blacken the photographic film.

  There are 2 types – radiopaque – white film due to high density bone absorbing a lot of the rays

  Radiolucent – dark film as low ray absorption due to low density tissue
• CT scans – computer produces images which shows the amount of radiation absorbed by the body. Individual organs appear dark as they are low dense. CT uses more energy than x ray

  Helps to screen for cancer and shows organ abnormality that cant be shown on an x ray
• MRI – computer forms images from the reaction of hydrogen protons to the strong magnetic field.

  Protons helps to form images by producing a signal when they get hit by radiofrequency waves. The signal strength depends on the water content of tissue and strength and duration of the waves.
• Cytologic smears – Pap smear – helps to find out any abnormal cells in fluids which can show early signs of cancer (cervical) or other diseases.

  Biopsy – helps to find unusual structure of tissue and cells.
• Therapeutics – medicine – deals with disease treatment

  Pharmacology – treating diseases by using drugs
• Pharmaceutical therapy – pain relief, hormone control and enzyme level adjustment.
• Chemotherapy – removes cells that divides a lot like cancer cells. It allows normal cells to grow and heal. Depending on the drug given, the patient will feel better.