Lecture 1 ANI SCI 320 : Defining Health and Disease Flashcards
How is Health defined by the WHO?
A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
How is a disease defined?
A condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms.
What are 3 reasons why defining disease is difficult?
- Some believe that our uses of health and disease reflect value judgments
- Disease is relative to what people consider normal
- One person’s diarrhea is another person’s normal day
TRUE or FALSE? The definitions of health and disease can change with time as our knowledge evolves?
TRUE
How is an illness defined?
A persons subjective experience of their symptoms. What a patient brings to the health care provider
How is a disease defined?
Underlying pathology; biologically defined: the health care providers perspective
Diseases are based on what kind of assessments?
Objective Assessments
How is sickness defined?
Social and cultural conception of this condition: cultural beliefs and reactions of such as fear or rejection. These affect how the patient reaction.
Who discovered the theory of naturalism?
Christopher Boorse 1976
What is naturalism? How do you define the following terms under this theory….
1. Reference Class
2. Normal Function
3. Disease
4. Health
Naturalism is the most prominent philosophical approach to defining health and disease that involves setting the ideal normal.
1. A natural class of organism of uniform functional design; specifically an age group or a sex of a species
2. Part or process within members of the reference class is a statistically typical contribution by it to their individual survival and reproduction
3. Type of internal state which is either an impairment of normal functional ability
4. The absence of disease
What are 2 criticisms of the naturalism theory?
- Neglects the role values play in determining healthy or diseased
- Provide definitions that rely exclusively on info from the biological sciences, but, lacks a basis in biological theory
Whats the basis of Normativism?
Disease is deviancy from some alternative state of affairs which is considered more desirable
What are the 2 criticisms of Normativism?
- Case where we agree that a state is undesirable but we disagree over whether it is a disease state (overweightness, PMS)
- Values can change
What is the order for the disease continuum?
- Optimal Health
- Good Health
- Normal Health
- Sub-Clinical Disease
- Clinical Disease
- Death
Where does medical treatment occur in reality vs where it should occur? Where do supplements and formulated diets fall on the scale?
- Medical treatment occurs at the clinical level when it should really occur at the sub-clinical level
- Supplements and formulated diets normally occur within the optimal to good health range
