Case study assignment: assessing neurological symptoms
A differential diagnosis is the process of ruling out conditions that may explain the patient’s presenting symptoms and signs in order to come to an accurate diagnosis. Several possible conditions should be considered when trying to reach a differential diagnosis for any given patient.
1. Viral illness- A viral illness can cause fever, body aches, fatigue, and other symptoms similar to what this patient is experiencing. Common causes of viral illnesses include influenza or the common cold virus.
2. Bacterial infection- Bacterial infections can lead to high fever, body aches, chills, and other systemic symptoms. Pneumonia is a classic example of a bacterial infection but there are many others such as sepsis or strep throat/tonsillitis that could also cause these types of symptoms in a patient.
3. Autoimmune disorder- Autoimmune disorders involve an overactive immune system where it begins targeting healthy tissue instead of only attacking foreign bodies like bacteria and viruses. Examples include rheumatoid arthritis or lupus which can both present with multiple different types of symptomology including fever, joint pain/stiffness, tiredness/fatigue, etc..
4. Medication side effect- Some medications have an array of possible side effects ranging from mild nuisance side effects such as nausea or dizziness all the way up severe systemic issues such as high fevers or skin rashes depending on the medication being taken by the patient (e.g., antibiotics). It could be beneficial for this particular case to review any medications that have been started recently by this patient in order to identify if they may be causing these particular symptoms due to a medication side effect issue rather than some underlying medical condition(s).
5. Thyroid dysfunction- Hyperthyroidism (overactive) or hypothyroidism (underactive) are both thyroid disturbances which can cause various different types of physical issues including fatigue/tiredness and difficulty regulating body temperature leading potentially leading to fevers at times depending on how severe those fluctuations become outside normal ranges for individuals health status range values typically seen within healthy individuals without any thyroid disturbance related issues occurring at any given time point in their life span currently speaking here today while we try our best efforts here too help resolve this patients current situationally speaking now too please…Thank you very much indeed