DOWNLOAD ~ Diagnostic Versus Classification Criteria: A Continuum. by Bulletin of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Diagnostic Versus Classification Criteria: A Continuum.
- Author : Bulletin of the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Health & Fitness,Books,Health, Mind & Body,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 191 KB
Description
As is true for some other disciplines, many of the diseases we have to deal with in rheumatology do not have specific clinical, laboratory, histological, or radiological features to tell them apart from other conditions with similar disease presentations. To this end, formal "disease criteria" have been formulated. Initially, all disease criteria were called "diagnostic." A well known example has been the historic Jones criteria for rheumatic fever. Later, it was realized that such disease criteria often were not useful in making the correct diagnosis in an individual patient. Their place was in making classifications mainly for research purposes. This, I propose, led to the current understanding that disease criteria are, in essence, different from classification criteria. I suggest this is a misconception. The two, in fact, represent a continuum. Every set of disease criteria is created as a classification and has the potential of becoming diagnostic if it has sufficient internal and, especially, external validity. The "mental arithmetic" behind both disease criteria and classification criteria is the same. In other words, there is no other cerebral process in making a diagnosis other than that of classification. A diagnosis is, in fact, making a classification in an individual patient.