

Subsequently, a diagnostic opinion is often described in terms of a disease or other condition. From the point of view of statistics, the diagnostic procedure involves classification tests.Ī diagnosis, in the sense of diagnostic procedure, can be regarded as an attempt at classification of an individual's condition into separate and distinct categories that allow medical decisions about treatment and prognosis to be made.

Occasionally the process is made easy by a sign or symptom (or a group of several) that is pathognomonic.ĭiagnosis is a major component of the procedure of a doctor's visit. This involves the correlation of various pieces of information followed by the recognition and differentiation of patterns. Thus differential diagnosis, in which several possible explanations are compared and contrasted, must be performed. For example, redness of the skin ( erythema), by itself, is a sign of many disorders and thus does not tell the healthcare professional what is wrong. Sometimes the posthumous diagnosis is considered a kind of medical diagnosis.ĭiagnosis is often challenging because many signs and symptoms are nonspecific. Often, one or more diagnostic procedures, such as medical tests, are also done during the process.

The information required for diagnosis is typically collected from a history and physical examination of the person seeking medical care. It is most often referred to as diagnosis with the medical context being implicit. Medical diagnosis (abbreviated Dx, D x, or D s) is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs. Radiography is an important tool in diagnosis of certain disorders.
