Talk:List of medical symptoms

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I don't really seen why this page is necessary, especially if ICD-10 codes are listed. Why not just use the List of ICD-10 codes article? I realized that this article might be much shorter and only contain generalized symptoms as opposed to all the diseases in the article I just mentioned, but I feel like this article is the nonetheless gratuitous. All the information is available in an existing, more comprehensive article. Please let me know why this article should NOT BE DELETED! Thanks JeffreyN 05:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Because ICD-10 codes are designed for the convenience of billing and not for actual medical practice? Because ICD-10 codes are interpreted only by people specially trained in their use, and even so are frequently in error? Because patients have symptoms, and not ICD-10 codes? Because ICD-10 codes are basically useless to humans? Because ICD-10 codes, unlike English-language symptoms, have no intrinsic meanings? Because sthe meanings of the words for symptoms don't change from year to year, but ICD codes do? Because ICD-10 codes are not unambiguous, and don't map one-to-one with symptoms? etc. - Nunh-huh 05:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. Good points! Thanks for the prompt reply! It seems you feel very strongly about this :) JeffreyN 05:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

And that's just off the top of my head<g> - Nunh-huh 05:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we should list common names for each symptom? I find it rather unlikely that the average person would know what epistaxsis is. I've changed a few symptom names to reflect the actual medical terminology (e.g. "pyrexia" instead of "fever") For the time being, I'll just leave it as it is. Also, I've added hypothermia and hyperthermia. I'm unsure whether these are symptoms or conditions, but presumably they could be either, since both can be caused by other disorders/illnesses. Fuzzform 22:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Disclaimer

Should there be a disclaimer? eg. "If you have a serious health complaint, please seek medical help." We wouldn't want people with chest pain searching down the list when they should be ringing for an ambulance! Orinoco-w (talk) 23:16, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Organization

Symptoms should always be put into their correct category. They should also be put in alphabetical order unless there is a logical reason not to (e.g. insomnia and somnolence should be next to one another, as they are opposites).

If you are unsure whether a condition is a disorder or a symptom (i.e. a cause or an effect) please list it here on the talk page so it can be verified.

Fuzzform 18:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the page in its current state at the time of me writing this is messy and ambiguous in nature. It needs to be caragorised in alphabetical order, and as Fuzzform has said, relevant symptoms (opposites) should remain together. I'll get to work on that as soon as possible. Cyclonenim (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The title of this page is somewhat misleading, isn't it? In my opinion it should be "List of medical symptom and signs". --Arildfa 09:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

As it stands it is MOSTLY a list of symptoms. However there are a few lab tests that have snuck in (macrocytosis and reticulocytosis). I've never had a patient ACTUALLY COMPLAIN of Catatonia! They are usually unable to complain of anything at all. There are a million apraxias and dyspraxias (agraphia, anomia, alexia, a-can't stop listing apraxias-ia), phobias that I haven't actually gone into yet. Interestingly I found "suicidal ideation" but no corresponding article on "homicidal ideation". IMHO we could get away from the ICD-10ishness by making this predominantly a list of what patients will complain about - common names in alphabetical order so the uninitiated can find them, associated with their medical names. Of course there will be the issues of dizziness-vertigo/dizziness-syncope or blood from the back passage - haematochezia/melaena but we can usually get around that sort of thing. Any thoughts, ideas? Orinoco-w (talk) 05:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd be willing to agree with you simply because the current system is so ambiguous it seems to cause confusion to anyone who stumbles upon it; however, ICD-10 is the current standard for the categorisation of medical signs and symptoms, and as such Wikipedia would be best suited to keep it that way (despite how confusing it is for medical and non-medical staff). Instead, I believe we should concentrate on the reorganising and simplification of the article. After reading your comment on the discussion page, I agree that many of the terms could be expanded hundreds of times (e.g. apraxias, dyspraxias, phobias) and that one could argue, firstly, that we should simply place only generic terms on the page and allow individual articles to expand upon them (e.g. the apraxia article page can expand as much as it likes on apraxias) and, secondly, that certain terms ARE NOT signs and symptoms (as you mentioned, catatonia). CycloneNimrod (talk) 09:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay - so now there is a page on homicidal ideation (and I'd appreciate it if some of you guys could have a quick read of it and give me some feedback!) and I've listed a whole bunch of apraxias (I'm about to start on phobias). I think I shall start putting in "common complaint" type symptoms - what the patients complain of, there being no objection and one voice in support. Orinoco-w (talk) 07:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Medical symptoms are not medical signs and vice versa.

In this article there seems to be little distinction, well none, between signs and symptoms. I have always understood that signs are seen (or discovered) by the doctor and symptoms are what the patient feels. To me it seems lazy (and ?incorrect) to conflate the two distinct groups and lose the detail of difference between them. Richard Avery (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

the distinction between signs and symptoms is not really used in practice that's why it's normal to mix both. You can see that well in all wikipedia pages for any diseases where there's the chapter "signs and symptoms". Not a chapter of "symptoms", then one of "signs". But I agree some signs are really to "physician-centered" to be put mixed with other symptoms/signs, like for example, the Kernig's_sign Linuxo (talk) 20:59, 13 December 2018 (UTC)