CLINICAL BIOCHEMISTRY AND HAEMATOLOGY

Clinical Biochemistry and Haematology



Clinical Biochemistry and Haematology

Case 1

The first case that will be discussed in this paper is about a Caucasian man named John who is sixty four years old. John visited because he experienced some symptoms of breathlessness and waned to consult his doctor because of this breathlessness that he was experiencing because this had never happened to him before. The doctor examined his John clinically because the doctor wanted John to go through some clinical tests related to cardiovascular or respiratory diseases. The results of the clinical tests through which John went revealed some very important information about John's health that would help the doctor to treat him accordingly. The information that was collected by the doctor through the clinical test of John is presented in the appendix. It was also examined that John had not been in contact with tuberculosis. A brief discussion on the problem of John's health is presented in this as follows along with answering some important question in relation with the case of John.

Q1. What is the differential diagnosis?

Differential diagnosis is basically referred to identifying which one of the two or more diseases with similar symptoms the patient suffering is from. Sometimes, it happened that a patient shows symptoms that make the doctor to think that there could be one of the two or more diseases through which the patient is suffering (Siegenthaler, 2007, pp. 222). Then in this case, the doctor uses differential diagnosis in order to identify the disease through which the patient is being suffering.

In this case, the doctor was not able to decide in the beginning that actually what caused breathlessness in John. It could be either due to a cardiovascular disease or respiratory disease. In differential diagnosis, the doctor may have examined a number of symptoms that were visible in John's health conditions. The differential diagnosis in this case demonstrated that the basic cause of short breath or breathlessness that John was experiencing was cardiac or respiratory disorders (Maheshwari, 2008, pp. 60). It is very important to understand that there are three most significant causes that could cause breathlessness or short breath. These significant causes of breathlessness include:

During an attack of anxiety, the increased awareness of normal breathing.

Abnormalities in the ventilator system.

Increase in the breathing work.

It was obvious from the history and occupation and the symptoms that the patient carried that the most significant cause of breathlessness in this case could be respiratory disorders. Another reason of determining respiratory disorder as the reason of John's breathlessness was because he used to work in a steel industry that would have caused some respiratory disorder (Tolomeo, 2012, pp. 86). There is usage of harmful chemicals in the industry and the emission of harmful fumes could also cause this disorder in the patient.

Further investigations through which the patient went showed the symptoms of ankle oedema. The symptoms of ankle oedema in the patient were observed because of an increase in the fluid pressure in the ...