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OGMS Proposals. Alexander P. Cox 2013 ICBO Meeting Montreal, Canada. Signs & Symptoms. Sign is currently defined as:
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OGMS Proposals Alexander P. Cox 2013 ICBO Meeting Montreal, Canada
Signs & Symptoms • Sign is currently defined as: • A quality of a patient, a material entity that is part of a patient, or a processual entity that a patient participates in, any one of which is observed in a physical examination and is deemed by the clinician to be of clinical significance. • Symptom is currently defined as: • A quality of a patient that is observed by the patient or a processual entity experienced by the patient, either of which is hypothesized by the patient to be a realization of a disease. • These are defined classes
Signs & Symptoms • ‘sign’ and ‘symptom’ fall outside of the continuant/occurrent distinction • In the current forms, they are not particularly useful • Other terms refer to signs and symptoms (whether explicitly or implicitly) and thereby have their utility reduced. These include: • syndrome =df “A pattern of signs and symptoms that typically co-occur.” • acute disease course =df “a disease course with a rapid onset but typical unfolding of signs and symptoms after this rapid onset.” • treatment =df “A processual entity whose completion is hypothesized (by a healthcare provider) to alleviate the signs and symptoms associated with a disorder” • clinical finding =df “A representation that is either the output of a clinical history taking or a physical examination or an image finding, or some combination thereof.” • clinical history =df “A representation of clinically significant bodily components, dispositions, and/or bodily processes of a human being that is inferred from relevant clinical findings.” • physical examination =df “A sequence of acts of observing and measuring qualities of a patient performed by a clinician; measurements may occur with and without elicitation.”
Signs & Symptoms Possible revisions: • Eliminate ‘sign’ and ‘symptom’ and just use ‘clinical finding’, redefine other terms accordingly • Make ‘sign’ and ‘symptom’ relations between clinical findings (or perhaps something more general), patients, and physicians • X is sign of Y • X is symptom of Y • Make ‘sign’ and ‘symptom’ roles that can be played by clinical findings (or perhaps something more general) • X has role ‘sign of’ • X has role ‘symptom of’ • Combination of #2 and #3 • Other???
Syndrome • syndrome =df “A pattern of signs and symptoms that typically co-occur.” • ‘syndrome’ is a subclass of ‘quality’, which is a ‘specifically dependent continuant’ • What is a pattern? • If a pattern is a generically dependent continuant/occurrent, how does this affect syndrome?