Section outline

  • A disease is an abnormal physiological condition that affects part or all of an organism. It means that something has gone wrong with the normal body functions and/or processes. Diseases are linked with ‘symptoms’ and ‘signs’ – where a symptom is a manifestation of disease apparent to the patient himself, while a sign is a manifestation of disease that the physician perceives. The sign is objective evidence of disease; a symptom, subjective.

    To determine the use of medicines for the treatment of diseases (pharmacotherapy), four concepts are important:

    • Symptoms
    • Diagnosis
    • Mechanism described at a physiological and a molecular level
    • Target responsible for the medicine’s action (in this context: organ, part, tissue that is to be affected by the medicine).

    These are described in more detail in the book below.

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