All Topics  
Nosology

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Nosology
 
 
  Topics Nosology Topic Home

Nosology (from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 ??s??, nosos, "disease" + ????? "logos
Logos

is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos....
") is a branch of medicine
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 that deals with classification
Classification

Classification may refer to:* Library classification and classification in general* Taxonomic classification*...
 of disease
Disease

A disease or medical condition is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and Medical signs....
s.

Diseases may be classified by etiology
Etiology

Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
 (cause), pathogenesis
Pathogenesis

The term pathogenesis means step by step development of a disease and the chain of events leading to that disease due to a series of changes in the structure and /or function of a cell/tissue/organ being caused by a microbial , chemical or physical agent....
 (mechanism
Mechanism

Mechanism may refer to:*Mechanism , explaining how a feature is created.*Reaction_mechanism , explaining a reaction pathway.*Mechanism , a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes...
 by which the disease is caused), or by symptom
Symptom

A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality. A symptom is subjective, observed by the patient, and not measured....
(s). Alternatively, diseases may be classified according to the organ system involved, though this is often complicated since many diseases affect more than one organ.

A chief difficulty in nosology is that diseases often cannot be defined and classified clearly, especially when etiology or pathogenesis are unknown.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Nosology'
Start a new discussion about 'Nosology'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Nosology (from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 ??s??, nosos, "disease" + ????? "logos
Logos

is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos....
") is a branch of medicine
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 that deals with classification
Classification

Classification may refer to:* Library classification and classification in general* Taxonomic classification*...
 of disease
Disease

A disease or medical condition is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and Medical signs....
s.

Diseases may be classified by etiology
Etiology

Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
 (cause), pathogenesis
Pathogenesis

The term pathogenesis means step by step development of a disease and the chain of events leading to that disease due to a series of changes in the structure and /or function of a cell/tissue/organ being caused by a microbial , chemical or physical agent....
 (mechanism
Mechanism

Mechanism may refer to:*Mechanism , explaining how a feature is created.*Reaction_mechanism , explaining a reaction pathway.*Mechanism , a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes...
 by which the disease is caused), or by symptom
Symptom

A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality. A symptom is subjective, observed by the patient, and not measured....
(s). Alternatively, diseases may be classified according to the organ system involved, though this is often complicated since many diseases affect more than one organ.

A chief difficulty in nosology is that diseases often cannot be defined and classified clearly, especially when etiology or pathogenesis are unknown. Thus diagnostic terms often only reflect a symptom or set of symptoms (syndrome
Syndrome

In medicine and psychology, the term syndrome refers to the association of several clinically recognizable features, sign , symptoms , phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one feature alerts the physician to the presence of the others....
).

One of the earliest efforts at developing a classification of diseases began in the 10th century, when the Arabian psychologist
Islamic psychology

Islamic psychology or Ilm-al Nafsiat refers to the study of the Nafs in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age as well as modern times , and is related to psychology, psychiatry and the neurosciences....
 Najab ud-din Unhammad classified a nosology of nine major categories of mental disorders, which included 30 different mental illnesses in total. Some of the categories he described included obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a mental disorder most commonly characterized by Intrusive thoughts, repetitive thoughts resulting in compulsive behaviors and mental acts that the person feels driven to perform, according to rules that must be applied rigidly, aimed at reducing anxiety by preventing some dreaded event or by resolving a more...
s, delusional disorder
Delusional disorder

Delusional disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychosis mental illness that involves holding one or more non-bizarre delusions in the absence of any other significant psychopathology ....
s, degenerative disease
Degenerative disease

A degenerative disease is a disease in which the function or structure of the affected biological tissue or Organ will progressively deteriorate over time, whether due to normal bodily wear or lifestyle choices such as exercise or eating habits....
s, involutional melancholia
Involutional melancholia

Involutional melancholia or involutional depression is a traditional name for a psychiatric disorder affecting mainly elderly or late middle-aged people, usually accompanied with paranoia....
, and states of abnormal excitement.

In the 18th century, the taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus was a Sweden botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern alpha taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology....
, Francois Boissier de Sauvages
François Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix

Fran?ois Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix was a French physician and botanist who was a native of Al?s. He studied medicine and botany at the University of Montpellier, and received his doctorate in 1726....
, and psychiatrist Phillipe Pinel developed an early classification of physical illnesses. Thomas Sydenham
Thomas Sydenham

Thomas Sydenham , was an England physician. He was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property....
's work in the late 17th century might also be considered a nosology. In the 19th century, Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin

Emil Kraepelin was a Germany psychiatrist. The Encyclopedia of Psychology by H. J. Eysenck identifies him as the founder of contemporary scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics....
 and then Jacques Bertillon
Jacques Bertillon

Jacques Bertillon was a France statistician and demography.Born in Paris, Bertillon was the son of statistician Louis Bertillon and the older brother of Alphonse Bertillon....
 developed their own nosologies. Bertillon's work, classifying causes of death
Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a life organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby....
, was a precursor of the modern code system International Classification of Diseases
ICD

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems provides codes to classify diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings,...
.

The early nosological efforts grouped disease
Disease

A disease or medical condition is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and Medical signs....
s by their symptom
Symptom

A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality. A symptom is subjective, observed by the patient, and not measured....
s, whereas modern systems (e.g. SNOMED) focus on grouping diseases by the anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 and etiology
Etiology

Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
 involved.

See also

  • Clinical coder
    Clinical coder

    A Clinical coder, also known as Diagnostic coder or Medical coder, is a health care professional whose main duties are to analyse clinical statements and assign codes from a clinical classification....
  • Differential diagnosis
    Differential diagnosis

    A differential diagnosis is a systematic method used to identify unknowns. This method, essentially a process of elimination, is used by taxonomy to identify living organisms, and by physicians and other qualified healthcare professionals to diagnosis the specific disease in a patient....
  • International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems
    ICD

    The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems provides codes to classify diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings,...
  • Medical classification
    Medical classification

    Medical classification, or medical coding, is the process of transforming descriptions of medical diagnosis and medical procedure into universal medical code numbers....
  • Pathology
    Pathology

    Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of Organ , tissue , bodily fluids and whole bodies . The term also encompasses the related science study of disease processes, called General pathology....
     (study of disease)
Category:Diseases and disorders (Wikipedia's categorization of diseases)


External links

  • Gordon L. Snider, Nosology for Our Day Its Application to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Vol 167. pp. 678-683, (2003).


  • : An online resource for nosologic diagnostic systems. This site also demonstrates how the proposed system can be used currently in Neurology and Psychiatry