Exercise 5. Read the text and be ready to discuss it

TYPES OF DISEASES
Health has traditionally been defined as the freedom from disease. Disease is a disordered state of a tissue, organ, system or organism during which this part can’t function normally. In many cases, the terms disease, disorder, morbidity and illness are used interchangeably.

Humans have suffered from illnesses since they first appeared on the earth about 2, 5 million years ago. In those times treatment was based largely on superstition and guesswork. Medicine has made tremendous progress in the last several hundred years. Today, it is possible to cure, control or prevent hundreds of diseases.

Nowadays there are about sixty thousand diseases. It is quite clear that if we want to put an end to at least a small part of them it is necessary to organize a process of training doctors and pharmacists at a high level. These specialists must have good knowledge in order to avoid mistakes in the process of diagnosing and treatment.

There are different types of diseases. Such as inherited, infectious, allergic, nutritional, toxic, neoplastic, degenerative diseases that make patients suffer. Diseases can strike almost any part of the body. Besides diseases can be classified as contagious and non-contagious, inherited and non-inherited, and as diseases, which have different causes, such as poisoning, or immunology. We can also speak of geriatric diseases, which occur in aging people. Many diseases are tightly connected with our lifestyle or profession (e.g. illnesses caused by the lack of movement as most office workers have). And of course we can also speak of illnesses, which occur chiefly in certain climates and geographical regions (e.g. tropical disease – malaria).

Each type of diseases should be treated by specially trained specialists.

Medical specialists, psychologists, social workers help patients and their families cope with chronic, acute or terminal illnesses and handle problems that may stand in the way of recovery or rehabilitation. They may organize support groups for families of patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, or other illnesses. They also advise family caregivers, counsel patients, and help plan for their needs after discharge by arranging for at-home services – from meals-on-wheels to oxygen equipment.

But we can help our body to fight and prevent many diseases ourselves. Organism itself is a complicated machine and has barriers against infections. And as the best treatment is prevention we should carefully look after ourselves, keep a healthy lifestyle: ”Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”.