What's the difference between symptoms and signs?
A symptom is subjective. It is not usually visible to others including nurses and diagnosticians. Symptoms are what the patient experiences about the illness, disease or injury.
Symptoms include such things as pain or discomfort, fever, chills, cold, heat, vertigo, nausea, etc.
Symptoms are usually the presenting reasons why the patient seeks medical advice or attention.
The charateristics of the symptoms are helpful in the diagnostic phase. These include onset, the quality, what triggers them, what aggravates them, what relieves them, the severity, do they radiate elsewhere, etc.
Signs are physical manifestation that can be felt, heard, measured, observed.
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