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Ancient Egyptian prescriptions for the back and abdomen and their Mesopotamian and Mediterranean counterparts
Published in Ulrike Steinert, Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures, 2020
Directly linked to these short formulations is the question of what we can learn about the afflictions treated here and the concepts surrounding renal and rectal diseases in ancient Egypt.19 The problem of retrospective diagnosis is too complex to be discussed here in detail. But since our focus is instead on the concepts that the ancient specialists worked with, the identification of an ancient group of symptoms with a modern disease name would add little to our knowledge (Heeßel 2000: 11; Radestock 2015).
Magnitude of the problem
Published in Kathleen M Berg, Dermot J Hurley, James A McSherry, Nancy E Strange, ‘Rose’, Eating Disorders, 2018
Eating disorders are modern clinical concepts based on diagnostic criteria of relatively recent origin. It is, therefore, difficult to make retrospective diagnoses except in unusually well-documented cases since the kind of medical assessment that would exclude other conditions is not available. However, it is highly likely that eating disorders, or at least instances of prolonged food refusal with binge eating and self-induced vomiting, were well established, if poorly understood, features of the health landscape long before Sir William Gull coined the term ‘anorexia nervosa’ in 1873 (Gull, 1874). Society has from time to time interpreted food refusal in a variety of ways and developed responses that have been appropriate to contemporary knowledge about health and the human psyche. Indeed, the 19th century appears to have marked a cultural divide when fasting became a medical problem rather than, as anorexia mirabilis, an object of awe and an important sign of piety. Additionally, ‘hunger strikes’ are a time-honored means of social protest or civil disobedience.
Medical History in Three Themes
Published in Marta E. Hanson, Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine, 2012
Retrospective diagnosis – the projection of modern disease concepts onto past disease experiences – remains a common practice despite its anachronism and methodological pitfalls. It justifies ignorance of changes in meanings of diseases over time. By contrast, this book's approach to the history of disease concepts starts from the premise that diseases are historically situated, socially defined, and culturally meaningful. Not only does the meaning of a disease concept evolve, the disease is inseparable from its definition and interpretation. These two opposing approaches to the history of disease can be summarized according to what Adrian Wilson, borrowing from Ludwig Fleck, called two “thought styles.” The common practice of retrospective diagnosis exemplifies what Wilson calls the naturalist-realist approach. This approach assumes that the modern disease concept mirrors “natural reality” and thereby excludes it from serious historical investigation. Scholarship that takes disease concepts themselves as objects of historical analysis, by contrast, represents the historicalist-conceptualist approach.6 From this perspective, the histories of the more obviously somatic modern disease concepts such as plague, cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, and syphilis are as varied, variable, and unstable over time as those disease concepts considered to be more psychosomatic – neurasthenia, chronic-fatigue syndrome, allergies, and even asthma – or more obviously socially constructed ones such as hysteria, homosexuality, cholorosis, and most recently, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Dysfunction of the stress response in individuals with persistent post-concussion symptoms: a scoping review protocol
Published in Physical Therapy Reviews, 2021
Gerard Farrell, Cathy Chapple, Ewan Kennedy, Kesava Sampath, Angela Spontelli Gisselman, Chad Cook, Steve Tumilty
Participants. Studies on humans of any age or sex will be accepted to broaden the scope of this review.Persistent post-concussion symptoms (PPCS). To be classified as having PPCS, individuals must be initially diagnosed with concussion, or similar term (refer to operational definitions), by a medical professional (i.e. general practitioner, physiotherapist) or appropriately trained professional (i.e. athletic trainer). Retrospective diagnosis by an appropriate professional will be accepted. The most recent expert consensus statement on concussion in sport (Berlin 2016) states the use of ‘persistent symptoms’ following concussion must reflect a failure of normal clinical recovery beyond the expected timeframes [1]. The normal recovery time for adults (19 years and older) is 10-14 days, whereas children (18 years and less) is less than 4 weeks. Therefore, to be classified as having PPCS, symptoms after a concussion must be present for more than 10-14 days in adults, and more than 4 weeks in children [1]. Studies with a mixed population (individuals with concussion and PPCS, or children and adults) will be included provided sub-group or sub-population analysis of PPCS is possible i.e. participants in longitudinal studies may initially present with concussion but eventually transition to PPCS at later timepoints, and mixed populations of children and adults mean that adults will develop PPCS before children, as per the Berlin consensus statement on ‘persistent symptoms’ [1].
Clinical management of vaginal bleeding in postmenopausal women
Published in Climacteric, 2020
Natural menopause is defined as the permanent end of menstrual periods after a woman has experienced 12 months of amenorrhea. It is a retrospective diagnosis. The average age of menopause in western countries is 51.4 years1. The transition between the reproductive years and menopause, known as ‘perimenopause’, begins 4 years before and is characterized by irregular periods, some endocrine changes including elevated follicle stimulating hormone, and clinical symptoms such as insomnia, hot flushes, and vaginal dryness2,3. Conversely, surgical menopause occurs after the removal of the ovaries in a woman who has not reached natural menopause. Drug-induced menopause, or medical menopause, occurs in women exposed to medications that suppress ovarian function, while several factors such as alcohol consumption4, smoking habit5, passive smoking6, exposure to pesticides7, and working jobs requiring night-shift rotations8 may induce earlier menopause.
A contemporary 16-year review of Coxiella burnetii infective endocarditis in a tertiary cardiac center in Queensland, Australia
Published in Infectious Diseases, 2018
Mark R. Armstrong, Kate L. McCarthy, Robert L. Horvath
Coxiella burnetii can be acquired from multiple environmental sources. Many cases in our series had occupational risk factors [26]. The predominance of males is likely consistent with occupational risk, confirming the high male-to-female Q fever case ratio found in prior studies [27]. Eight retrospective diagnoses were noted in this series. A high degree of clinical suspicion is required to consider the diagnosis. As noted in our contemporary series and in the Wilson et al. series [22], serology results were not always consistent with a diagnosis of Q fever, [19] a finding that has been noted elsewhere [28]. Utilizing new diagnostic modalities such as PCR and PET scanning may need to be introduced into clinical practice to increase diagnostic yield in patients suspected to have Q fever endocarditis [29].