Jonathan Emmesedi🧵 1/2
I've just finished "The Age of Diagnosis" by Suzanne O'Sullivan.
The author, an Irish neurologist, claims that we are becoming the victims of overdiagnosis and overmedicalization.
Overdiagnosis - a term with which I was not not hitherto familiar - "refers to a diagnosis that is correct but which does not benefit the patient and may arguably do harm. Overdiagnosis occurs when a medical problem is detected at a stage when medical treatment is not really required".
Overmedicalisation "occurs when ordinary human differences, behaviour and life stages are given medical labels..."
I found this book thought provoking, in particular with regard to the author's challenge to commonly held assumptions about the benefits of screening and pre-emptive testing. I also thought her warnings about the dangers of thinking of diagnosis as a technical procedure rather than a physician's attempt to explain symptoms should be heeded.
Links to a couple of reviews can be found here: https://floss.social/@rdnielsen/114478603556078827
Some will disagree in the strongest of terms with her arguments about diagnosis creep with regard to autism, ADHD, and Lyme disease. This critical review accuses O'Sullivan of a poorly informed paternalism: https://mastodon.ie/@Tupp_ed/114609317582047709
Although I am not going to discuss those specific issues, I do worry that....
#TheAgeOfDiagnosis #SuzanneOSullivan #Health #Medicine
#Overdiagnosis #Overmedicalization #Overmedicalisation #Medicalization
RDN (@[email protected])
A couple of review of a new book "The Age of Diagnosis" that suggests that the increasing prevalence of once-rare conditions is due to an overdiagnosis epidemic. https://undark.org/2025/05/09/book-review-age-of-diagnosis/ https://openlettersreview.com/posts/the-age-of-diagnosis-by-suzanne-osullivan It's not evident that the book's author addresses neglect of base rates in diagnoses, but that is possibly a related issue. Note that the author evidently has a critical view of the expanding diagnoses of autism and ADHD. #Medicine #Diagnoses #Health
CUSP 
