The difference between a disease and syndrome
April 13, 2013 at 12:07pm
I have seen people posting on FB lately about how RSDS is a disease. It gets confusing because there is so much literature (outdated and current) where it is classified or listed as a syndrome, still. Until it is reclassified as a disease AND literature catches up… it is still classified as a syndrome. So people saying it is not a disease, can rightly argue that it is not a disease based on the fact that it is still classified as a syndrome by the majority of powers that be. A syndrome is a collection of symptoms NOT a disease. A syndrome is a set of symptoms that all appear together. Technically, syndrome is used to describe a collection of symptoms or medical characteristics, usually that is on-going. A physical cause for the symptoms can not always be identified, meaning that many syndromes are still medical mysteries. A disease is an illness where you have a line on the cause of it: genetic, toxicological, bacterial, viral, etc. Example: Although testing has been done and we now know that there are auto-antigens involved and it is a disease, the medical world has not caught up and the literature and books our providers study from have not caught up. We are in a transition period at this point. Many RSD’ers don’t want another name change but currently it is RSDS (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy SYNDROME) so when others say… “but it is not a disease” it is harder to fight back because a majority of our providers and 95% of the literature still says its a syndrome. This is such new information (April 2011), it will take a while to get out there and change. And I have heard many patients themselves fight over if there should be a name change… I for one say Yes there should be one so it can be classified as a disease, insurance will pay more toward our treatment options, and the public awareness and understanding will increase. Another example: AIDS is still called a “syndrome” even though we now have a good line on the cause, the HIV virus. It acquired the name “syndrome” before the cause was known, and it has stuck. Others would say that the HIV infection is the disease, and that AIDS is the syndrome (set of symptoms) caused by it, because you can have the HIV infection without having AIDS.
