Leading symptom
Leading symptom (also cardinal symptom or core symptom ) is a term from medicine and psychopathology . It stands for the most significant sign of a certain illness or injury , which the doctor or psychotherapist uses as an orientation aid when making a diagnosis .
Occur
The main symptom is sometimes the patient's main complaint, for example
- a sudden onset of painful tightness in the chest during a heart attack or
- Pain in the right lower abdomen with appendicitis .
It can also be a sign of illness that is not recognized by the patient himself, for example
- increasing forgetfulness in Alzheimer's disease or
- Isolation from the outside world with pronounced fear of change in autism .
Significance in everyday clinical practice
The term symptom indicates its special significance for the doctor and psychotherapist: It guides him through the process of classification of combinations of symptoms , possible up to the desired objective, the diagnosis or a diagnosis realistic assignment. Some textbooks - especially emergency medicine and general medicine - are structured according to key symptoms instead of clinical pictures, because this comes closest to the way doctors work in these areas.
A key symptom, such as shortness of breath , can have various causes. The diagnosis can be further narrowed down by recognizing and assessing in combination the available findings that the doctor receives in the course of questioning the patient and the physical examination :
- A predisposition to allergies suggests asthmatic symptoms as an explanation.
- Chills would be typical of the flu or pneumonia .
- Injuries to the chest, signs of a rib fracture, and ambient air noises indicate lung perforation .
Individual evidence