Whois & Analysis for ehealthstar.com

A physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination (more popularly known as a check-up) is the process by which a medical professional investigates the body of a patient for signs of disease.

It generally follows the taking of the medical history—an account of the symptoms as experienced by the patient.

Together with the medical history, the physical examination aids in determining the correct diagnosis and devising the treatment plan.

This data then becomes part of the medical record.

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is an approach to medical practice intended to optimize decision-making by emphasizing the use of evidence from well-designed and -conducted research.

Although all medicine based on science has some degree of empirical support, EBM goes further, classifying evidence by its epistemologic strength and requiring that only the strongest types (coming from meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials) can yield strong recommendations; weaker types (such as from case-control studies) can yield only weak recommendations.

The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients.

Use of the term rapidly expanded to include a previously described approach that emphasized the use of evidence in the design of guidelines and policies that apply to groups of patients and populations ("evidence-based practice policies").

It has subsequently spread to describe an approach to decision-making that is used at virtually every level of health care as well as other fields (evidence-based practice).

Therapy (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis.

In the medical field, it is usually synonymous with treatment (also abbreviated tx or Tx).

Among psychologists and other mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and clinical social workers, the term may refer specifically to psychotherapy (sometimes dubbed 'talking therapy').

The English word therapy comes via Latin therapīa from and literally means "curing" or "healing".

Health is the level of functional and metabolic efficiency of a living organism.

In humans it is the ability of individuals or communities to adapt and self-manage when facing physical, mental or social changes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its broader sense in its 1948 constitution as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition has been subject to controversy, in particular as lacking operational value, the ambiguity in developing cohesive health strategies, and because of the problem created by use of the word "complete".

Other definitions have been proposed, among which a recent definition that correlates health and personal satisfaction.

A symptom (from Greek σύμπτωμα, "accident, misfortune, that which befalls", from συμπίπτω, "I befall", from συν- "together, with" and πίπτω, "I fall") is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, reflecting the presence of an unusual state, or of a disease.

A symptom is subjective, observed by the patient, and cannot be measured directly, whereas a sign is objectively observable by others.

For example, paresthesia is a symptom (only the person experiencing it can directly observe their own tingling feeling), whereas erythema is a sign (anyone can confirm that the skin is redder than usual).

Symptoms and signs are often nonspecific, but often combinations of them are at least suggestive of certain diagnoses, helping to narrow down what may be wrong.

In other cases they are specific even to the point of being pathognomonic.