Novel aspects in diagnostic approach to respiratory patients: is it the time for a new semiotics?

AbstractMedical approach to patients is a fundamental step to get the correct diagnosis. The aim of this paper is to analyze some aspects of the reasoning process inherent in medical diagnosis in our era. Pathologic signs (anamnestic data, symptoms, semiotics, laboratory and strumental findings) represent informative phenomena to be integrated for inferring a diagnosis. Thus, diagnosis begins with “signs” and finishes in a probability of disease. The abductive reasoning process is the generation of a hypothesis to explain one or more observations (signs) in order to decide between alternative explanations searching the best one. This process is iterative during the diagnostic activity whi le collecting further observations and it could be creative generating new knowledge about what has not been experienced before. In the clinical setting the abductive process is not only theoretical, conversely the physical exploitation of the patient (palpation, percussion, auscultation) is always crucial. Through this manipulative abduction, new and still unexpressed information is discovered and evaluated and physicians are able “to think through doing” to get the correct diagnosis. Abductive inferential path originates with an emotional reaction (discovery of the signs), step by step e xplanations are formed and it ends with another emotional reaction (diagnosis). Few bedside instruments are allowed to physicians to amplify their ability to search for signs. Stethoscope is an exa...
Source: Multidisciplinary Respiratory Medicine - Category: Respiratory Medicine Source Type: research