Talk:Asymptomatic

asymptomatic and patient communication of what they feel
I was once told that if a patient cannot communicate to the health provider what they feel, then they are asymptomatic. For instance if a patient is in a coma, then they are asymptomatic. This concept fits with the definition provided here, however is not mentioned in the article... --159.178.250.76 (talk) 13:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes Janoven frans (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Poeple by my town...here many matrix that are looking for job but one is .. answer them...can someone help us Janoven frans (talk) 09:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

wiktionary?
does this merit being an article, or just an entry in the wiktionary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fcendejas (talk • contribs) at 08:12, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think there is enough to write about. What makes a disease slumbering? Are there different types of asymptomatic diseases? Typical examples? Cheers, Face 11:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Definition
I think a better description of 'asymptomatic' would be a condition of no OBVIOUS OR NOTICEABLE symptoms to the patient or the doctor (until of course something is found by further testing) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.202.112.144 (talk) 13:51, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Not a dictionary definition
This was deleted on the grounds that it was a dictionary definition. People may have differing opinions about what is and is not a dictionary definition. But one is that a dictionary definition is a tautology. This is not the case with asymptomatic in spite of its appearing to imply the negative of symptom. In usage it is short for asymptomatic infection or asymptomatic condition (such as leukemia).

What is hiddens behind it is in fact a very important piece of knowledge--that agents of illness or infection do not necessary show the symptoms associated with them. With the present 2009 swine flu outbreak this is fundamental--if policy makers assume that only people with the flu carry the virsus they are going to make very decisions to if they appreciate that most people carrying it will not develop flu symptoms.

It is also important for people told that they have a condition following tests to be aware that this does not mean they necessarily have the symptoms assocated with that condition--they may have it asymptomatically.

It is therefore important that Wikipedia has an article for it. There is one for subclinical infection which covers some of the issues but this does not cover conditions that are not due to infectious agents. Hence it makes sense to have an article which covers them as well. --LittleHow (talk) 14:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * they should not merge the 2 articles together cos i dont want to find a huge article. i want asymptomatic definition only —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.132.230.169 (talk) 07:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed move
I suggest we move this article to Asymptomatism or Asymptomaticity, which more generally describes the concept. — Gaute chat - email - sign 00:11, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

History section
This article would benefit from a section describing the history of the original discovery of asymptomatic carriers -- how the first of Koch's postulates had to be revised, etc. &mdash;Undomelin (talk) 22:37, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

asymptomatic and subclinical are slightly different
Everything is in the name. Asymptomatic means with no symptoms. Subclinical means that the clinical signs are not sufficient to cause observable symptoms. However, they exist. All subclinical affections are asymptomatic (by definition). However, not all asymptomatic affections are subclinical. The current pandemic is a good illustration of that difference. Many people infected by SARS-CoV-2 (that is also true for many other viruses) do not exhibit any clinical sign (except if you count the viral load as a sign). There is maybe not enough ground to create separate pages. But perhaps mentioning the difference in the text? Nicolas Gambardella (talk) 12:04, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Lead
This article has had issues for a long time with being rather too "dictionary-like". A recent edit was made which replaced the (admittedly somewhat awkward) existing lead with series of definitions, this doesn't seem like a suitable format for a lead either, and isn't something I've seen used in better articles. It reads like three dictionary entries, which Wikipedia is not. Whilst the lead needed improvement, this change has fundamentally altered it from a summary of the topic into something else. Mako001 (C) (T)  🇺🇦 14:03, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Mako001, I understand your legitimate concern. The problem is that this short entry/article involves defining three 'terms' at once, while specifying their used synonyms in the literature plus writing a meaningful text. This is a real challenge. Your proposition/statement is in line with the Wikipedia's Manual of Style, which also explicitly urges for flexibility whenever it improves the text/writing meaningfulness (i.e. making exceptions whenever a corner case happens).
 * We can remove the term 'adjective' everywhere and gather the two first sentences, so to get a less "dictionary-like" effect. In the previous posts (above) people complain about using an adjective as entry's title, and the polysemy of the definitions/uses in the literature... However, this is not a reason for fostering poor scientific writing – see more on my talk page. 7e8y (talk) 15:17, 25 March 2023 (UTC)