“Somatic pathology” is a term that the patient can often hear from the lips of the attending physician, but not every person who is far from the field of medicine knows its meaning. It is important to understand that this definition is the starting point of medicine in the fight against bodily ailments. The word "pathology" indicates a process that goes beyond the normal functioning of a healthy organism, and the definition of "somatic" indicates a disease of the body. Next, we consider the question in more detail. We will discuss what diseases are hidden behind the term “somatic pathology”, what are their distinguishing features, how they proceed, how they are treated and whether it is possible to protect themselves from such ailments.
What it is?
So, the topic of our conversation is somatic pathology. What it is? The answer will sound something like this: this is a violation of the functional activity of any systems and organs. The opposite of this phenomenon is a disease provoked by a psychological or mental state of a person.
Thus, somatic disorder is called any bodily ailment.
Differences from non-somatic pathology
Differentiating these two concepts is extremely important, because there are diseases that have a set of specific symptoms that cause physical significant discomfort to a person, but do not fit the definition of “somatic pathology”.
A classic example of this disorder is vegetovascular dystonia. Panic attacks that occur in a person suffering from VSD may be accompanied by chest pain, lack of air, severe weakness, tremor. That is, the symptoms are similar to signs of a cardiovascular pathology, but in fact there is a functional violation of the nervous system, provoked by a stress load or weakening of the body.
Thus, when a patient visits a medical institution, a doctor must first determine whether a person really has somatic pathology, or if the patient needs to be consulted by a psychotherapist.
Acute form of the disease
Speaking of somatic processes, it is necessary to classify them according to the nature of development and course into acute and chronic.
The distinction between these forms is sometimes conditional, because the vast majority of diseases in the acute stage, without proper treatment, are transformed into a chronic pathology. The exceptions are diseases whose symptoms can disappear on their own (ARI), or those that end in death if the disease causes processes in the body that are incompatible with life.
Acute somatic disease is a pathology that develops rapidly, and the clinical picture is pronounced. It is almost impossible not to notice the signs of acute pathology.
First of all, acute diseases include most of the viral and bacterial processes, poisoning, inflammation due to infections. Thus, for a disease with an acute form, the effect of an external factor, for example, a virus, bacteria, toxin, is characteristic.
The process can last from one day to six months. If during this period the disease is not eradicated, we can assume that the acute form has become chronic.
Chronic form of the disease
Somatic pathology, the signs of which are present in the body after the cure of the acute form, is called chronic.
Most often, the transition to this form occurs when the treatment of an acute disease has not been carried out properly and in the required volume. This may mean the wrong choice of drug for treatment, and even non-compliance with the regime. That is why for the successful elimination of a number of diseases, it is recommended that the patient stay in the hospital: with strict bed rest and a balanced diet, the body spends energy on a quick recovery. In the event that the patient transfers the disease “on his feet”, there is not enough energy to fight the disease, so the body adapts to the disease, transferring it from an acute form to a less pronounced one.
The second reason that chronic somatic pathology occurs is the lack of an effective therapy algorithm in modern medicine. For most diseases, there are methods for maintaining health in the presence of a chronic disease. Sometimes this allows you to stop the ailment subject to lifelong medication, in other cases, to slow the loss of organ function or simply extend the patient’s life.
Finally, the chronic form of the disease may be due to a genetic factor.
In chronic somatic pathology, diseases are characterized by a slow course with unexpressed symptoms. On the one hand, this provides patients with a higher standard of living: a person can remain healthy for a long time. On the other hand, this negatively affects the diagnostic process. Few people undergo regular medical examinations, so often patients get an appointment with a doctor even with a sufficiently advanced stage of the disease.
Severity
According to the definition, both acute respiratory disease and functional insufficiency of any body system equally fall under the definition of somatic pathology. However, it is clear that the difference between diseases in terms of risk for the patient and the severity of symptoms exists. Therefore, there is a reason to classify bodily ailments, dividing them into at least two categories: mild and severe somatic pathology.
A mild disease can be determined by two characteristics: the absence of pronounced symptoms, when the disease is tolerated by a person relatively easily without causing a loss of working capacity, and by the absence of a risk to the patient's life. Another thing is the severe degree of the disease. We’ll talk about this.
Severe pathology
Severe somatic pathology has a vivid symptomatic picture. Other systems of the body can be involved in the inflammatory process, in addition to the one in which the pathology is found. Such a disease entails a danger in the form of complications and the transition of the disease into a chronic form, in which functional failure can develop.
Almost any disease can be classified in this way. So, for example, a cold can occur in the form of a severe pathology, and a more dangerous disease, such as meningitis, may have a mild severity. There is also an intermediate grade estimate, which is called average.
Determining the severity of the disease is very important for productive therapy, for choosing a treatment plan, drugs, examination methods. In addition, the risk of complications depends on the form of the course of the disease. This means that the duration of the rehabilitation period and the number of restrictions during it will differ.
Exacerbations
The acute phase of the disease can develop against the background of an already existing pathology, proceeding in a chronic form. So, the disease most of the time will have mild symptoms, but when exposed to certain factors (lack of treatment, hypothermia, stress, climate change, pregnancy, etc.), the disease can go into the acute phase, with its accompanying symptoms.
In this case, we are talking about such a process as exacerbation of somatic pathology. Unlike the acute phase, exacerbation in a favorable course is characterized not by complete recovery, but by a return to the chronic stage of the disease as being safer for the patient's life.
Methods of treating exacerbations and acute phases differ little in the treatment regimen and the drugs used. However, for higher effectiveness, doctors recommend preventive treatment to avoid exacerbations. In this case, the therapy is gentle and is aimed at strengthening the body.
Diagnosis of pathologies
In order for the doctor to be able to diagnose the patient and establish that in his case there is a somatic disease, he needs to carry out a number of diagnostic measures. The main symptom of the disease is the presence of certain symptoms. However, not always a symptom is a guarantee of the presence of pathology. Violation of well-being can be triggered by a functional disorder of a particular system, and in this case, the disease can not always be diagnosed.
Therefore, it is important for the doctor to consider a set of factors in order to establish that the patient has a somatic pathology: symptoms, their complex, duration, manifestation conditions. So, for example, pain cannot be a clear sign of pathology, but if it worries a person for a long time and, in combination with it, vomiting is noted, say, the presence of a somatic disorder is more than obvious. At the same time, if the cause of the pain is a strike, there was no pathology in the person before the traumatic factor.
Diagnostic Methods
For diagnosis in modern medicine, several methods are used:
- collection of patient history, oral questioning;
- examination of the patient, palpation;
- the use of laboratory diagnostic methods (examination of urine, blood, sputum, organ tissues, etc.);
- the use of functional diagnostic methods (ultrasound, x-ray, etc.);
- operational examination methods.
To confirm the presence of somatic pathology, several different analyzes are necessary with deviations from the norm or at least three examinations made at short intervals in time and always with one method.
Pathology treatment
Therapy of somatic ailments is the main component of the activities of doctors. Medicine today uses the evidence-based method, that is, only those methods are applied whose degree of high efficiency is high and the degree of danger is as low as possible.
Treatment of somatic pathologies is most often carried out medically. Drugs can affect the cause of the disease, eliminating it (for example, antiviral drugs affect the virus that provoked a respiratory disease), or reduce the severity of symptoms (painkillers).
The second most common treatment method is surgery. The priority for doctors is the drug method as a simpler and safer. But in the event that the drugs are ineffective, or the expectation of the effect of their exposure carries a risk to the patient's life, resort to surgical interventions.
For the treatment of somatic pathology, the methods of physiotherapy, physiotherapy exercises and massage, herbal medicine, diet therapy have also shown themselves well.
Other methods with a degree of effectiveness not proven at the scientific level are rarely used to treat somatic diseases. But they can be successfully used to eliminate non-somatic pathologies, in which the placebo method often leads to a positive result.
Prevention
The vast majority of somatic pathologies can be fought with proven methods of prevention. Most of them are simple guidelines for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This is the maintenance of hygiene, a balanced diet, the optimal level of regular physical activity, vaccination.
Non-somatic diseases, which are based on mental disorders, often develop under the influence of factors that a person cannot prevent. As such factors can be heredity, trauma, the onset of a certain age.