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Symptom
 
 
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A symptom (from 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?µpt?µa, "accident, misfortune, that which befalls", from s?µp?pt?, "I befall", from s??- "together, with" + p?pt?, "I fall") 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.

toms may be chronic, relapsing
Relapse

A relapse occurs when a person is affected again by a condition that affected them in the past. This could be a medical or psychological condition such as Clinical depression, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, cancer or an addiction to a drug abuse....
 or remitting
Remission (medicine)

Remission is the state of absence of disease activity in patients with known chronic illness. It is commonly used to refer to absence of active cancer or inflammatory bowel disease....
.






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A symptom (from 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?µpt?µa, "accident, misfortune, that which befalls", from s?µp?pt?, "I befall", from s??- "together, with" + p?pt?, "I fall") 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.

Types

Symptoms may be chronic, relapsing
Relapse

A relapse occurs when a person is affected again by a condition that affected them in the past. This could be a medical or psychological condition such as Clinical depression, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, cancer or an addiction to a drug abuse....
 or remitting
Remission (medicine)

Remission is the state of absence of disease activity in patients with known chronic illness. It is commonly used to refer to absence of active cancer or inflammatory bowel disease....
. They also may progressively worsen or progressively become better (convalescence
Convalescence

Convalescence is the gradual recovery of health and strength after illness.The convalescence of a patient after a life altering surgery or illness is greatly affected by health care providers....
). Conditions may also be classified as symptomatic (present and demonstrating symptoms) or asymptomatic (present but without symptoms). Asymptomatic conditions exist for years undiagnosed and may only be found upon medical testing (such as high blood pressure
Hypertension

Hypertension, also referred to as high blood pressure, HTN or HPN, is a medical condition in which the blood pressure is chronically elevated....
).

Constitutional or general symptoms are those that are related to the systemic effects of a disease (e.g., fever, malaise, anorexia, weight loss). They affect the entire body rather than a specific organ or location.

The terms "chief complaint", "presenting symptom", or "presenting complaint" are used to describe the initial concern which brings a patient to a doctor
Physician

A physician, medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, or medical doctor practices medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and injury....
. The symptom that ultimately leads to a diagnosis
Diagnosis

Diagnosis is the identification of the nature of anything, either by process of elimination or other analytical methods. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with slightly different implementations on the application of logic and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships....
 is called a "cardinal symptom".

Possible causes

Some symptoms occur in a wide range of disease processes, whereas other symptoms are fairly specific for a narrow range of illnesses. For example, a sudden loss of sight
Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define "blindness." Total blindness is the complete lack of form and visual light perception and is clinically recorded as "NLP," an abbreviation for "no ligh...
 in one eye
Eye

Eyes are Organ that detect light, and send signals along the optic nerve to the visual system and other areas of the brain. Complex optical systems with resolving power have come in ten fundamentally different forms, and 96% of animal species possess a complex optical system....
 has a significantly smaller number of possible causes than nausea
Nausea

Nausea is the sensation of unease and discomfort in the stomach with an urge to vomit....
 does.

Some symptoms can be misleading to the patient or the medical practitioner caring for them. For example, inflammation of the gallbladder
Cholecystitis

Cholecystitis is inflammation of the gall bladder....
 often gives rise to pain in the right shoulder, which may understandably lead the patient to attribute the pain to a non-abdominal cause such as muscle strain
Strain (injury)

A strain is an injury to a muscle in which the muscle fibers tear as a result of stretching. Strains are also colloquially known as pulled muscles....
.

Symptom versus sign

A symptom can more simply be defined as any feature which is noticed by the patient. A sign is noticed by other people. It is not necessarily the nature of the sign or symptom which defines it, but who observes it.

A feature might be sign or a symptom, or both, depending on the observer(s). For example, a skin rash
Rash

A rash is a change of the skin which affects its color, appearance, or texture. A rash may be localized in one part of the body, or affect all the skin....
 may be noticed by either a healthcare professional as a sign, or by the patient as a symptom. When it is noticed by both, then the feature is both a sign and a symptom.

Some features, such as pain, can only be symptoms, because they cannot be directly observed by other people. Other features can only be signs, such as a blood cell count
Complete blood count

A complete blood count , also known as full blood count or full blood exam or blood panel, is a test requested by a physician or other medical professional that gives information about the cells in a patient's blood....
 measured in a medical laboratory
Medical laboratory

A medical laboratory or clinical laboratory is a laboratory where tests are done on clinical specimens in order to get information about the health of a patient....
.

See also

  • Category:Symptoms
    • List of medical symptoms
      List of medical symptoms

      Medical symptoms are complaints which indicate disease. They are noticed by the patient and cause people to go and see a health practitioner. It is rare that a person would visit a doctor and complain as follows: "Doctor, I have amaurosis fugax." They are more likely to complain of Blindness....
    • 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....
    • Symptomatic treatment
      Symptomatic treatment

      Symptomatic treatment is any medicine therapy of a disease that only affects its symptoms, not its cause, i.e., its etiology. It is usually aimed at reducing the signs and symptoms for the comfort and well-being of the patient, but it also may be useful in reducing organic consequences and sequelae of these signs and symptoms of the disease....