[Gnumed-devel] vocabulary question - doctors, please speak up

[Karsten Hilbert]

Hi all,

we have so far used the term "health issue" as one of the
(optional) grouping concepts in GNUmed. I feel we should
change the label for the concept to something better suited
to English clinical use.

By "health issue" we mean

- an underlying, fundamental condition
- of longer-term significance but with
- either continuous or on-off activity levels
- much like a past history item (probably identical)
- which may or may not manifest itself in various body systems

Examples are:

- Crohn's disease
- acute myocardial infarction
- appendectomy
- Diabetes
- Lupus
- polytrauma
- ...

So, often "chronic" diseaese/conditions. Probably identical
to "past history items".

Now, the term "health issue" is poorly chosen as Ian brought
me to understand when he attended gnumed.conf.de.

In German we use "Grunderkrankung" which means "basal/
fundamental/ primary/ constitutive afflication".

What do native speakers think we should use ? Just stick to
"past history item" ?

BTW, "Fundamental Freedoms" as in Human Rights are
"Grund-Rechte" (Fundamental Rights) in German - just
like "Grund-Erkrankung".

constitutive
constitutional
constituing
primary
primal
prime
underlying
basic
basal
base
fundamental
seminal
elemantary
essential
material


Karsten
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