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Principle of Treatment refers to the ways of treatment to cure a disease that include mainly two ways- Reduce the effect of the disease and Kill the cause of the disease. Human species are prone to fall sick if the immunity which is the ability of a living being to resist infections becomes weak. Immunity helps a person live disease-free. A disease is a condition in which the function or the structure of certain organs gets affected. The relationship between immunity and disease is inversely symmetrical. Here we will look at the types, causes, and treatment measures of diseases while looking at principles of treatment that can be applied to prevent diseases or reduce their spread of infectious diseases.
| Table of Contents |
Key Terms: Disease, Types of Diseases, Causes of Disease, Treatment of Diseases, Principle of Treatment, Effect of Disease, Human Body, Acute Disease, Chronic Disease, Pathogen
Disease and Its Types
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When a microorganism enters the living body, it reaches the target site and causes infection. Due to this infection, we often fall sick. This condition where any pathogen enters the body and attacks the cells and leads to disruption in the functioning of the structure of organs of the human body is called disease.
Diseases
There are two types of diseases namely acute disease and chronic disease. Acute diseases are those that exist for a shorter period while chronic diseases refer to those that stay for a longer period. The difference between the two can be tabulated as follows:
| Acute Disease | Chronic Disease |
|---|---|
| Stays for a shorter period. | Stays for a longer period. |
| Can be cured in a few hours, days or weeks. | They are incurable. Symptoms can only be reduced with the continued use of medicines. |
| Usually caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungus or even by some injury, illegal drugs or excessive consumption of medicines. | Caused by social, emotional, environmental and genetic factors also play an important role in causing chronic disease. |
| Transmission is possible through the air, water and vectors. | Direct transmission is absent. However, they can be passed on from one generation to another genetically. |
| Example: Cholera, Common cold | Example: Diabetes, Tuberculosis |
Acute Disease (Common Cold)
Chronic Diseases
Causes of a Disease
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Diseases impact the health of living beings and can be caused by various factors. These factors include extrinsic factors as well as intrinsic factors. The difference between the two can be understood as:
| External/Extrinsic Factors | Internal/Intrinsic Factors |
|---|---|
| Pathogens (microorganisms that cause disease) enter the body from outside and cause disease. Example: Virus, Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoan | Malfunctioning of body parts can be an internal cause of diseases. Example: failure of heart, liver, kidney etc. |
| Genetic factors do not play any role in extrinsic factors. | Genetic factors that pass on from parents to offspring like diabetes or simply mutation in the body like cancer can also be an internal factor. |
| Inadequate diet or low nutrition is another cause. Example: Anaemia | Diet has no impact on intrinsic factors. |
| Environmental pollutants make people sick. Example: Asthma and water-borne diseases. | Environmental pollutants have no role. |
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors of a Disease
Treatment Measures
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Treatment refers to the medical care given to a patient to recover from a disease. This can be done majorly in two ways:
- Managing the symptom of illness: When a diseased person shows a physical feature that conveys something is wrong with his or her functioning of the body, it is called a symptom. For example: if a person has Covid-19, he or she will have fever, cough, tiredness and loss of smell or taste. These symptoms can be managed by getting lots of rest and drinking fluids. Managing the symptom would reduce the suffering of a diseased person but get completely rid of the disease, the root cause of the disease must be identified so that medicines can be used accordingly.
- Medicines to treat the illness: Medicines are the drugs that can be used for the treatment of diseases. Scientists have developed drugs that are active in the biochemical process of the pathogen (disease-causing microorganisms). Antibiotics are one such drug that acts on the biochemical process of the bacteria and helps to treat the disease caused by them.
Treatment of Diseases
Principle of Treatment
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Treatment helps improve the overall health of a sick person. When pathogens enter the body and impact the normal functioning of the organs, then treatment is the best possible option for people. Treatment also follows certain principles based on which the results can be observed. The two major ways to treat disease are as follows:
- Reduce the effect of the disease: Reducing the effect of the disease would mean that the symptoms are treated with medicines but the cause remains unknown. For example: if a child has an upset stomach and the doctor gives a medicine that works on reducing the symptom which here is an upset stomach, then the cause remains unknown. Medicines in this case work on inhibiting the symptom rather than the cause. This is called symptomatical treatment which can reduce the effect of the underlying disease but not cure it. Certain diseases like the common cold, flu cannot be cured, therefore symptomatical treatment is the best alternative to offer relief to the patients. Taking proper rest help the body to heal from the disease as it conserves the energy and utilises it in the healing process.
- Kill the cause of the disease: Killing the disease would mean acting on the causative agent (pathogen) and destroying them completely so that a complete cure can be offered. Certain drugs like antibiotics work on the biochemical process of bacteria that help them sustain life in the living body. These drugs attack the biochemical process of the bacteria without affecting the host cell and help in curing them. In cases of the virus, it is difficult to follow the same procedure as the virus have very few biochemical processes of their own. They attach themselves to the host cell and use their machinery for keeping themselves alive. Therefore, developing an anti-viral drug is difficult than an anti-bacterial. However, the anti-viral drug has been created to control HIV and it has shown to be effective.
Limitations of Principle of Treatment
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The principle of treatment focuses upon getting rid of the disease from someone who already has it. This has major limitations as:
- There is no guarantee that someone who already has a disease and has undergone treatment might have fully recovered as sometimes treatment too cannot yield a hundred per cent positive results.
- The process of treatment takes time. This means that people who are suffering from a major disease might stay bedridden for a longer period. This process is slow and consumes a lot of resources.
- In cases of infectious diseases that transfer from one person to another, treatment can act as an agent to spread more diseases. This is especially true in cases of viral diseases and Covid-19 is the best example.
Due to all these limitations, there is an alternative that can be followed which is focusing on prevention instead of treatment. Limiting exposure to causative agents can be one of the preventive ways. Working on immunity by staying healthy, eating balanced nutrient-rich food and taking immunity boosters can also be effective.
Treatment has proved to be of great help to people as many diseases that the body cannot naturally heal need some drugs that can be effective in curing them. It is safe to conclude that the very first step should be to stay prevented and even after that if we are diagnosed with a disease, treatment must be taken as it gives another chance to a healthy life. Treatment has decreased the mortality rate and, in many cases, reduced the reoccurrence of the disease. It improves the way of living for humans and makes one appreciate and value healthy life more.
Prevention is Better than Cure
Things to Remember
- The disease is a condition where the functioning of the structure of the organ is affected.
- There are two types of diseases: acute which exists for a short term and chronic that exists for a longer period.
- Certain factors like extrinsic that come from outside like virus, bacteria etc that enter the body from outside and impact a person’s health and intrinsic like the malfunctioning of internal organs are the major causes of disease.
- To deal with diseases, treatment can opt. Treatment refers to the medical care given to a patient to recover from a disease.
- Treatment can be done by either working on symptoms and controlling or using medicines to treat the illness.
- Treatment follows the principle of reducing the effect of disease and killing the cause of the disease.
- It is better to be prevented than to be cured as sometimes treatment does not completely make a person disease-free.
Sample Questions
Ques. What is disease? What are its types? (3 Marks)
Ans. A Disease is a condition in which the function or the structure of certain organs gets affected. When any pathogen enters the body and attacks the cells and leads to disruption in the functioning of the structure of organs of the body is called disease.
There are two types of diseases namely acute disease and chronic disease. Acute Diseases last for a shorter span of time while Chronic Diseases last for a lifetime or very long duration.
Ques. What are the causes of diseases? (3 Marks)
Ans. There are two types of causes of disease- Extrinsic Causes and Intrinsic Causes.
- They are extrinsic that come from outside like viruses, bacteria etc that enter the body from outside and impact a person’s health.
- Intrinsic Causes like the malfunctioning of internal organs are the major causes of disease.
Ques. What are the principles of treatment? (3 Marks)
Ans. Principles of treatment refer to reducing the effect of disease and killing the cause of the disease.
- Reducing the effect of the disease can be done by using medicines on the symptoms rather than going deeper into the reason for the symptom and then treating it.
- Killing the cause refers to destroying the pathogen completely to make a body disease-free.
Ques. Why is better to follow prevention than cure? (3 Marks)
Ans. While treatment involves making use of medicines to treat either the symptom or the pathogen to reach a cure, prevention is always better as it does not involve any such thing. In certain cases, prevention works better than cure since medicines too fail to save the life of an individual.
For example, Covid-19 is an infectious disease that spreads from an infected person to another easily. Thus, it is better for people to prevent themselves from contracting the virus by taking specific precautionary measures.
Ques. Why do antibiotics fail to treat any viral infection? (3 Marks)
Ans. Antibiotics are suited for bacteria They work on the biochemical process of bacteria that help them sustain life in the living body. These drugs attack their biochemical process without affecting host cells and help in curing them.
In cases of the virus, it is difficult to follow the same procedure as the virus have very few biochemical processes of their own. They attach themselves to the host cell and use their machinery for keeping themselves alive. Therefore, antibiotics cannot be used to treat any viral infections.
Ques. What is the difference between acute and chronic diseases? (5 Marks)
Ans. There are two types of diseases: acute which exists for a short term and chronic that exists for a longer period. The difference between them is as follows:
Acute Diseases
- Stays for a shorter period.
- Can be cured in a few hours, days or weeks.
- Usually caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungus or even by some injury, illegal drugs or excessive consumption of medicines.
- Transmission is possible through the air, water and vectors.
- Example: Cholera, Common cold
Chronic Diseases
- Stays for a longer period.
- They are incurable. Symptoms can only be reduced with the continued use of medicines.
- Caused by social, emotional, environmental and genetic factors also play an important role in causing chronic disease.
- Direct transmission is absent. However, they can be passed on from one generation to another genetically.
- Example: Diabetes, Tuberculosis
Ques. What are infectious diseases? How do they spread? (3 Marks)
Ans. Infectious diseases are those diseases that spread from an infected person to a healthy person through direct contact. For example AIDS, TB, Flu etc.
The most common means through which infectious diseases spread are:
- Though air: Measles, TB, Common cold
- Sexual transmission: Syphilis, AIDS
- Through animal: Rabbis
- Through water: Cholera, Hepatitis
Ques. What are some of the examples of non-infectious diseases? (1 Mark)
Ans. Non-infectious diseases are those that do not spread from an infected person to a healthy by direct contact. Some examples are cancer, blood pressure problem, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease.
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