Perhaps, every person at least once heard the word therapy and, in general terms, knows what it means. This term is most often used in medicine. Its full definition is as follows: therapy is a set of measures aimed at eliminating a disease, alleviating its symptoms, or recovering from physical or psychological trauma.
At the moment, there are more than one hundred types of therapy. Medical therapy is an absolute synonym for the word "treatment."
Key Approaches
There are several basic approaches in therapy:
1. Etiotropic therapy is such an approach to treatment in which the main task of the doctor is to eliminate the root cause of the disease.
2. Pathogenetic therapy involves intervention in the mechanism of the disease in order to facilitate its course.
3. The symptomatic approach is used to eliminate or reduce the symptoms of the disease. This type of therapy is characteristic of genetic diseases in which it is impossible to eliminate the root cause or change the mechanism of the course of the pathology.
Therapies
There are several therapeutic methods. The following are considered the main ones:
1. Chemical methods. They include exposure to biologically active substances.
2. Physical methods include exposure to the patient’s body with various types of radiation for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment, as well as massage and physical education.
3. Surgical methods - surgical intervention. They are usually used when other methods of treatment are ineffective.
The main types of therapy
There are many types of therapy. The main types familiar to almost everyone are pharmacotherapy, physiotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, herbal medicine, electrophoresis. Let us dwell on some of them.
Pharmacotherapy (pharmacological therapy) is a type of treatment that includes the use of drugs. Pharmacotherapy is effective in a very wide range of pathologies - from colds to oncologies. Chemotherapy, used to treat cancerous tumors and fungi, is also a type of pharmacotherapy, since the effect on the causative agent of the disease occurs with the participation of poisons and other chemical compounds.
Physiotherapy is an extensive section of applied medicine that studies the effects of physical factors on the human body.
Radiotherapy (or radiation therapy) is a complex of measures involving the effect on the patient's body of alpha, beta or gamma radiation.