Various Types of Diseases

In humans, the term disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.

In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function.

Diseases can affect people not only physically, but also mentally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter the affected person’s perspective on life.

The study of disease is called pathology, which includes the etiology, or cause.

An acute disease is a short-lived disease, like the common cold.

Chronic diseases last for a long time, usually at least six months.

Epidemiology is the study of the factors that cause or encourage diseases.

Epidemiology is considered a cornerstone methodology of public health research and is highly regarded in evidence-based medicine for identifying risk factors for disease.

In the study of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the work of epidemiologists ranges from outbreak investigation to study design, data collection, and analysis, including the development of statistical models to test hypotheses and the documentation of results for submission to peer-reviewed journals.

What are the Various Types of Diseases?

An acquired disease is one that began at some point during one’s lifetime.

An acute disease is of a short-term nature.

The chronic disease persists over time, often characterized as at least six months, but may also include illnesses that are expected to last for the entirety of one’s natural life.

A congenital disorder is present at birth. It is often a genetic disease or disorder that can be inherited.

A genetic disorder or disease is caused by one or more genetic mutations.

A hereditary disease is a type of genetic disease caused by genetic mutations that are.

An iatrogenic disease or condition is caused by medical intervention, whether as a side effect of a treatment or as an inadvertent outcome.

An idiopathic disease has an unknown cause or source.

An incurable disease is a disease that cannot be cured. Incurable diseases are not necessarily terminal diseases, and sometimes a disease’s symptoms can be treated.

A primary disease is a disease that is due to a root cause of illness, as opposed to a secondary disease, which is a sequel or complication that is caused by the primary disease.

A secondary disease is a disease that is a complication of a prior, causal disease, which is referred to as the primary disease or simply the underlying cause (root cause).

A terminal disease is expected to have the inevitable result of death.

What is an Illness?

The term illness is occasionally used to refer specifically to the patient’s personal experience of his or her disease.

A disorder is a functional abnormality or disturbance.

Medical disorders can be categorized into mental disorders, physical disorders, genetic disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, and functional disorders.

A medical condition is a broad term that includes all diseases, lesions, disorders, or other nonpathological conditions that normally receive medical treatment, such as pregnancy or childbirth.

Morbidity is a diseased state, disability, or poor health due to any cause.

A syndrome is the association of several medical signs, symptoms, or other characteristics that often occur together.

What are the Types of Illness by Body System?

Mental illness is a broad, generic label for a category of illnesses that may include affective or emotional instability, behavioral dysregulation, cognitive dysfunction, or impairment.

Specific illnesses known as mental illnesses include major depression, generalized anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to name a few.

An organic disease is one caused by a physical or physiological change to some tissue or organ of the body.

In an infectious disease, the incubation period is the time between infection and the appearance of symptoms.

The latency period is the time between infection and the ability of the disease to spread to another person, which may precede, follow, or be simultaneous with the appearance of symptoms.

The clinical disease has clinical consequences.

A cure is the end of a medical condition or a treatment that is very likely to end it, while remission refers to the disappearance, possibly temporarily, of symptoms.

Complete remission is the best possible outcome for incurable diseases.

A flare-up can refer to either the recurrence of symptoms or the onset of more severe symptoms.

Progressive disease is a disease whose typical natural course is the worsening of the disease until death, serious debility, or organ failure occurs.

A refractory disease is a disease that resists treatment, especially an individual case that resists treatment more than is normal for the specific disease in question.

Subclinical disease

Also called a silent disease, silent stage, or asymptomatic disease. This is a stage in some diseases before the symptoms are first noted.

Terminal phase

If a person will die soon from a disease, regardless of whether that disease typically causes death, then the stage between the earlier disease process and active dying is the terminal phase.

A localized disease affects only one part of the body, such as an athlete’s foot or an eye infection.

Disseminated disease

A disseminated disease has spread to other parts. This is usually called metastatic disease.

Systemic disease

A systemic disease is a disease that affects the entire body, such as influenza or high blood pressure.

What are the Causes of Disease?

An airborne disease is any disease that is caused by pathogens and transmitted through the air.

Foodborne illness or food poisoning is any illness resulting from the consumption of food contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, toxins, viruses, prions, or parasites.

Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible diseases or communicable diseases, comprise clinically evident illnesses resulting from the infection, presence, and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism.

A non-communicable disease is a medical condition or disease that is non-transmissible.

Non-communicable diseases cannot be spread directly from one person to another.

Heart disease and cancer are examples of non-communicable diseases in humans.