The Differences Between Syndrome, Disorder And Disease
In the field of health and psychology, the use of three key concepts is very common: syndrome, disorder and disease.
These are very powerful words, because at a popular level they are usually associated with lack of health and problems in the body, some of which could be chronic and therefore have no cure. However, That does not mean that in scientific, academic and health environments they are used as synonyms. In fact, they are not.
Below we will examine the differences between the disease, syndrome and disorder, but first we must clarify the meaning of the word “symptom” in order to understand everything else.
In the field of health, A symptom is the expression of an abnormal state that is, the consequence of a phenomenon that is manifesting in a body. Thus, a symptom could be a warning sign that a patient may have their health compromised in some way, or it could be a “false alarm.”
That is, a symptom can be many things, and the fact that they are present does not serve as definitive confirmation that someone’s health is compromised: e.g. A patient may say that he or she has a headache (symptom) without this being a sign that he or she has a disease.
The syndrome
A syndrome is a set of symptoms that occur together and that has already been previously studied. and which, therefore, has been identified as a clinical condition linked to one or more health problems. Thus, in a syndrome there are a series of symptoms that occur together very frequently. However, the symptoms that make up a syndrome can vary over time and therefore it can disappear.
What is the difference between a syndrome and a disease? Now we will see it.
The disease
The concept of disease, like that of syndrome, is a clinical entity, and therefore has to do with health problems. However, if a syndrome is nothing more than a set of symptoms already studied and identified as something that has its own entity by having a typical way of manifesting itself, A disease must present, in addition to one or more symptoms, or recognizable changes in the body or a known biological cause (or both).
That is to say, a syndrome, being essentially a set of symptoms, does not have to have a known cause or develop at the same time as anatomical alterations.
Thus, some syndromes may be the manifestation of a disease, but others may not, since their causes may be both biological and, for example, social.
What is a disorder?
In generic terms, A disorder can simply be understood as an alteration in the state of health. normal due or not to an illness. The area in which it is most common to talk about disorders is mental health. A mental disorder is usually understood as a maladaptive (and therefore problematic) change that affects mental processes.
Many times the term disorder is used as a looser way of referring to the disease in those cases in which the causes are not very clear and the possible anatomical alterations with which it is associated can be both a cause or a consequence of it. In the case of mental disorders, this is done a lot, since it is often not very clear whether the biochemical imbalances associated with some disorders are what produce the symptoms or are a product of a dynamic interaction between the person and their environment.
Thus, The concept of disorder simply serves to describe the signs of the state of abnormality and alteration of health. in which a person finds himself, while that of illness indicates a causal relationship, because it includes the specific causes (etiology) of the lack of health.
The disorder as a result of an interaction dynamic
And what is the other way to understand the meaning of the term disorder when talking about mental disorders? Well, precisely, it is what has to do with emphasizing the way in which the individual has related and continues to relate to the environment, instead of understanding a disorder as something static, related to genetics, illness and injuries. A disorder can actually be the consequence of the fact that we have been involved in a set of situations linked to the context in which we live and that cause us to have entered into a dynamic of behaviors that harm our health.
The cause of the disorder, therefore, does not have to be able to be reduced to a very specific part of the brain that functions abnormally, but could be distributed in all those actions that make up a cycle: we act in a way because we perceive things. in a way because we act in a way, etc.
Thus, the frame of reference that helps us know what we are referring to when we talk about what a disorder is is the following: Are disorders discovered by humans, or are they constructed by humans? Answering this question is not easy, and the nature of this debate has to do with both science and philosophy.
