terms

Diagnosis: 1 The nature of a disease; the identification of an illness. 2 A conclusion or decision reached by diagnosis. The diagnosis is rabies. 3 The identification of any problem. The diagnosis was a plugged IV.

The word diagnosis comes directly from the Greek, but the meaning has been changed. To the Greeks a diagnosis meant specifically a "discrimination, a distinguishing, or a discerning between two possibilities." Today, in medicine that corresponds more closely to a differential diagnosis.

Treatment, symptomatic: Therapy that eases the symptoms without addressing the basic cause of the disease.

For example, symptomatic treatment of advanced lung cancer that has spread (metastasized) beyond the lung is designed to decrease the pain and other symptoms but not to eradicate the disease.

Symptomatic treatment is also called palliative treatment.

Etiology: The study of the causes. For example, of a disorder.

The word "etiology" is mainly used in medicine, where it is the science that deals with the causes or origin of disease, the factors which produce or predispose toward a certain disease or disorder.

Today in medicine one hears (or reads) that "the etiology is unknown." Translation -- we don't know the cause.

Aetiology is the preferred spelling in some countries, including the UK, whereas "etiology" without an "a" has taken over in the US. The word comes from the Greek "aitia", cause + "logos", discourse.

Etiology (alternatively aetiology, aitiology /iːtiˈɒlədʒi/) is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek αἰτιολογία, aitiologia, "giving a reason for" (αἰτία,aitia, "cause"; and -λογία, -logia).^[1]

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, psychology, government, medicine, theology and biology in reference to the causes of various phenomena. An etiological myth is a myth intended to explain a name or create a mythic history for a place or family.

Prognosis: 1. The expected course of a disease.
2. The patient's chance of recovery.
The prognosis predicts the outcome of a disease and therefore the future for the patient. His prognosis is grim, for example, while hers is good.

The word prognosis comes from the Greek prognostikos (of knowledge beforehand). It combines pro (before) and gnosis (a knowing). Hippocratesused the word prognosis, much as we do today, to mean a foretelling of the course of a disease.