Differences between diagnosis and prognosis?

Hello Student,

Thanks for writing to us. Hope you are doing well in your life as well as in academics. We will be pleased to answer you. Let's start the discussion from the beginning. Both Diagnosis and prognosis, are very much important in Medical Science. These two of the most easily confused pieces of medical terminology have related but separate meanings.

• What is the Diagnosis ?

Diagnosis is the determining process that explains a person's symptoms and signs of disease. For Diagnosis what we need is typically collected from a history and physical examination of the person seeking medical care. It includes the classification of tests. Its a major component of a Doctors visit.

It is often tough because many signs and symptoms are nonp recise. For example, redness of the skin ( erythema ), by itself, is a sign of many disorders and thus does not tell the Doctor what is wrong.

• What is the Prognosis ?
  

Prognosis is also a medical term for guessing the likely or expected the development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen (and how fast) or remain stable over time. It is based on the normal course of the diagnosed disease, the individual's physical and mental condition, the available treatments, and additional factors.

in applied medical science, it's estimation can be very accurate: for example, the statement "25% of patients with a severe h eart attack will die within 18 days" can be made with some confidence, because the last surveyfound that this amount of patients died. This statistics does not apply to the prognosis for each individual patient. It is needed for determining whether the patient belongs to that category or not.

• Summary

1. Diagnosis is the identification of a disease from which the person is suffering from. Where Prognosis is an opinion based on doctors experience about what can be the actual disease.

2. In diagnosis, a complete examination is done of the patient with relevant knowledge. but the prognosis is to find out the factor or the function causing the disease.

3. The diagnosis has no classification. But Prognosis is classified into 2 parts- Differential and Pattern Prognosis.

4. A diagnosis gives the main reason for a symptom while Prognosis explains how likely it is to go away.

Hope you understood the brief. For more queries don't hesitate to ask us, We are happy to help you.

Regards,

Hello dear

If you have high blood sugar, the doctor is likely to diagnose you with diabetes.

If you have chest pains with associated blood markers and ECG changes, the doctor is likely to diagnose you with a heart attack.

So, what is diagnosis? It is the disease you are suffering. The pathology your body is housing.

Now.

If you suffer from diabetes, without insulin, your prognosis might be very bad because it could lead to a wide variety of secondary diseases, even heart attack, and death.

If you’re suffering from breast cancer, your prognosis might be very good with surgical treatment when diagnosed in the early stages.

So, what is prognosis? Prognosis is how your diagnosis i.e. your disease is likely to progress and what your chances of complete recovery and survival are in presence/absence of treatment.

It is a proposed trajectory. An estimated guess. A judgment based on statistics.

Prognosis is not words written in stone. It is only a speculation based on an average. There are always patients who are outliers — those who do much better or much worse than the suggested outcome.

Thanks for contacting us.