What is the difference between disorder and dysfunction

Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. When a healthcare provider suspects you have an autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis RA , you may hear them speak about your symptoms and diagnosis in various terms such as disease, disorder, syndrome, and condition.

While these terms may seem interchangeable, they all refer to specific states of health. Symptom, syndrome, disorder, disease are all terms used as a hierarchy to classify how our health is affected. The symptoms are the first things we notice that indicate there might be a problem. When a group of symptoms occur together, they are classified as a syndrome.

Knowing the syndrome helps healthcare providers analyze your health to determine the disorder. At that point, there is usually no direct implication that the symptoms are caused by one specific thing. When the cause of the disorder is determined then the diagnosis of the disease can be given.

Receiving a diagnosis of a specific autoimmune disease can take years. You may have clusters of symptoms that make it clear you have an autoimmune disorder of some sort but no concrete diagnosis. During the time it takes to receive the proper diagnosis, your condition, or how you feel on a daily basis, could vary. If you are experiencing arthritis symptoms, such as pain in your joints, your healthcare provider may tell you that you have arthritis.

Without knowing the exact cause of your symptoms, you are experiencing an arthritis syndrome or disorder. Often, arthritis syndromes and disorders are referred to simply as arthritis. Once the cause of your arthritis is discovered then you will be informed of the disease.

All diseases have a specific cause. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, the cause is the immune system attacking the joints. Illness is a broad concept while disease refers to a specific condition that can be diagnosed by a healthcare provider. In looking at disease versus illness, the term illness is more subjective.

You may identify as being ill based on your symptoms. Some of your symptoms can be fleeting like a runny nose, and others can be more serious and long term like high blood pressure. When you have a disease, you have a specific condition that was determined by your healthcare provider, and it is more objective. A disease is a pathological process that healthcare providers are able to see, touch, and measure. Diseases have particular signs and symptoms.

When diagnosing autoimmune diseases, healthcare providers will look for specific symptoms and clinical findings. The people who take up studies in pathology usually study diseases as pathology is particularly the subject for studying diseases. Diseases are also linked to medical conditions in linked with specific kinds of symptoms and signs. Causes of a disease can be external such as pathogens as well as pathogens like internal ill function of a particular of the body, internal diseases are usually linked with the immune system as the immune is the defense of the body against anything ill going on inside the organism.

Death by natural causes is the term used by people by a person or organism dies due to suffering from a disease. An irregularity or a lack of order or arrangement in the body of an organism is how a dictionary explains the word Disorder.

One of the main differences between both terms is that a disease can be transmitted from one person to another. But make no mistake, not all diseases are transmissible. We have communicable and non-communicable diseases. The list goes on and on. These are examples of diseases you can get from other people. And they can spread from one person to another via different means. So these are non-transmissible diseases. What that means is that these diseases cannot move from one person to another.

They remain with the sufferer even if the person in question comes in contact with others. Now you know the differences between communicable and non-communicable diseases. I also took the time to share some examples for a better understanding of both diseases. Another difference between a disease and disorder is this: External factors mostly cause diseases.

For instance, mosquitoes cause malaria. It does so by piercing through the skin of an individual. A disorder is quite different from disease in this aspect. An internal factor majorly causes it.

A good example is genetic factors. The disease is also a product of either a virus or bacteria. It is transmitted through sexual intercourse or coming in contact with the blood of an infected person.

However, a disorder can be due to abnormalities which could be intrinsic. An example is congenital disabilities or genetic malfunction.

There are similarities. The two conditions can also be severe. Another similarity is that both can lead to death. But depending on the type of disease or disorder, the speed at which death can occur differs. Again, another similarity is that diseases and disorders can affect both children and adults. At least, you may have seen newborn babies with some form of the disorder.