Disease

The disease is a process and the consequent status of condition of a living being, characterized by an alteration of its ontological status of health. The state and / or disease process can be caused by various factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the body sick: these are termed Noxa (from Greek nósos' disease ',' condition of health ").

Health and disease are an integral part of life, biological process and the environmental and social interactions. It is generally understood as a disease entity as opposed to health, whose negative effect is the result of an alteration or desarmonizacion a system at any level (molecular, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc.).'s Physiological and / morphological or considered as normal, balanced or harmonic .

By definition, there is a single disease, but the characterization and identification of different processes and different states of health, has led to discrimination against a universe of separate entities (nosologic entities), many of them are seen strictly as a disease, but other not (cf. syndrome and clinical disorder). In this way, disease processes and substitutes and the like, are understood as certain categories of the human mind.

Diseases affecting plants and other botanical genera relate to plant pathology, diseases that affect animals are the domain of Veterinary Science. The human disease is the core organizer of medical science, as much medical knowledge is oriented towards the disease and its solution.

Strictly (within the medical field), diseases are being studied in the Pathology (from Greek παθος 'affection', 'suffering'), which investigates the characteristics of each entity, its components and the process developed in conjunction with morfofisiological evidence that is printed on the biology of the organism sick. However, the nosology discipline is responsible for governing the definition and classification of various diseases according to rules based on the characterization and identification of components and functions that define each nosological entity as something unique and discernible from the rest. So, are studied in a broader context, comparative, and systematic, within an overall pattern of pathology.

Definition of sick

A patient is a human being suffering from an illness, whether consciously or not their state. Joan Riehl-Sisco define the role of the patient as "the position assumed when a person feels sick"

The way an individual perceives health and illness is a complex phenomenon and especially as it reacts together and face the situation in various dimensions of personality (emotional, rational, spiritual and physical, for example). Thus, each person will live the experience of health and disease in different ways and this will determine the meanings given to such experiences.

Although individual reactions, the social and cultural environment provides a framework for such reactions, limiting their expression to certain forms "culturally acceptable".

Following the same line, Ortiz Sanz says: "When the sick person does so in an integrated way, not in plot or in installments. All components of the human being are altered, and each demand their own needs. So that the disease produces physical symptoms such as pain and dyspnea, psycho-emotional symptoms such as fear, anxiety, anger, depression, spiritual needs and feelings of guilt, forgiveness, inner peace, and social demands as a consideration and not neglect.


Illness experience

The illness experience (EE) is a living process that involves changes or modifications to a previous state.

The U.S. is divided into five stages:

1. Phase I, which is experiencing the symptoms.
2. Phase II, which assumes the role of the patient.
3. Phase III, which makes contact with the health worker.
4. Phase IV, in which the patient becomes dependent on the health service.
5. Phase V, which is the rehabilitation / recovery or acceptance of the status of disease if it is chronic.

Conduct disease

In general, the "sick" act in a particular way compared to his condition, doctors call sociologists conduct disease such attitudinal change.

Disease involves the conduct of how the patient controls his body, define and interpret their symptoms, takes actions and makes use of the health system. There is great variability in the way people react to illness, the self as others. However, the manifestation of sickness behavior may be used to control the adversities of life.

Sickness behavior can become abnormal when it is disproportionate to the present problem and the person persists in the sick role.

Causes of illness


The medical lexicon identifies possible causes, probable or certain of the disease with the word 'cause'. The causes of disease can not be very clear for some diseases (eg psychiatric disorders), while in others, the cause-effect relationship is virtually undeniable and obvious (as so often happens in infectious diseases).

The etiology or cause of a disease is not always unique, and many cases (diabetes, hypertension, infertility, psychosis, ulcerative colitis, etc.). Policausales be construed as, ie, there are several pathogenic factors.

A model posed as causes a number of factors, a spectrum that ranges from one end to the causes genetic (endogenous) to the other extreme, corresponding to environmental factors (external).