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Multimorbidity and chronic disease: an emergent perspective
Author(s) -
Sturmberg Joachim P.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/jep.12126
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , disease , multimorbidity , chronic disease , psychological intervention , perception , affect (linguistics) , function (biology) , medicine , psychology , cognitive psychology , intensive care medicine , computer science , psychiatry , communication , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , pathology , evolutionary biology , biology
The concept of emergence offers a new way of thinking about multimorbidity and chronic disease. Multimorbidity and chronic disease are the end result of ongoing perturbations and interconnected activities of simpler substructures that collectively constitute the complex adaptive superstructure known as us, the person or patient. Medical interventions cause perturbations of many different sub‐systems within the patient, hence they are not limited to the person's bodily function, but also affect his general health perception and his interactions with his external environments. Changes in these domains inevitably have consequences on body function, and close the feedback loop of illness/disease, recovery and regained health.