Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
7.2.3
Some Remarks on the Application of Fuzzy Sets - To
Improve Diagnostics and Therapy for Individuals
The usual indicator factors for illness and intervention are quantifiable data of dys-
functions, physiological anomaly, non-standard incidents of the patient's body, etc.
- all these moments we can take honestly from the third person's perspective. In
addition to those, I would propose the following three indication marks to specify
diagnostics and improve therapy for individuals.
This would allow integrating decisive and individual factors in diagnosis and
therapy - not only from an ethical point of view, which would have more or less no
impact on medical practice. But it would be possible to take in account as fuzzy sets
the individual experienced und personal rated (1.) degree of pain or suffering:
d
(
p
)
,
(2.) also the degree of handicap or limitation:
d
(
h
)
, and (3.) the degree of necessity
of intervention:
d
- a measure resulting from subjective assigned factors like:
individual purpose, estimated enhancement, improvement of living conditions, for
example.
To explain how useful and significant for example these three indication points
could be, let me go back to the nose-problem example. From an assumed objective
point of view (from the third person's physician perspective) my nose seems to be
dysfunctional structured.
But (1.) I was never adversely affected by this; (2.) I was not handicapped by
this in real life; this would have been a limitation to me if I would ever have wanted
to become a great trumpet player or diver. But (3.) I didn't target this kind of career.
So there was no reason for the surgery and intervention.
A further example could shed light on this point. Especially significant for
(2.) are some handicapped people e.g., who have almost no legs or arms by birth
(contergan-child). Some of them are musicians or very successful in sports, but
refuse artificial limbs, experiencing themselves not as harmed in their integrity, but
entirely able to cope with their life and live their passions. Who should decide from
the outside what another person fails or wants for?
Especially the importance of (1.) is actually a topic of discussion in medicine.
Until this day, pain is not accepted as a sufficient indication for medical diagnosis
and treatment. The feeling and suffering of pain does not count as a “disease”,
without measurable causation, it's no reason to take it serious enough in medical
practice. Even if one suffers of chronic pain, much more than 20% of those patients
don't get any treatment, about 40% of pain patients need to wait more than one
year to get a therapy allotted.
18
This happens to be usual, just because feeling
and suffering of pain is no accepted disease pattern in the health care sector. As
a mere 'subjective' feeling and expression from the first person's perspective, it
is not accepted neither in medical care practice nor in health insurance funds as
an 'objective' sign of being ill and need for therapy. Things are slowly changing
(
n
)
18
The official figures currently collected by a pan-European study, named “Pain Proposal”,
