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Technical Mumbo Jumbo May Scare Patients

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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Hey, doc. Watch what you say. Sticks and stones may break patients' bones but it turns out words – your words – may hurt them, too. A new study shows that physicians may unnecessarily frighten patients by using technical jargon instead of layman's terms for certain types of medical conditions, making them sound a lot worse than they really are. Some examples:“androgenic alopecia” instead of male pattern baldness or “myalgic encephalopathy” in place of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Researchers at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario report in the online journal PLoS One that 52 undergraduate students in a study considered disorders described in   “medicalese” to be more serious and rare than when they were cast in simple terms.  The technical talk proved confusing only for conditions (male pattern baldness, for one) that were not thought of as diseases until relatively recently.

This study follows another one by the same team that found that diseases most often in the news are perceived as more serious than ones that do not get much coverage.

Such research is part of an ongoing effort to sort out what constitutes a disease and the terminology that drug companies can use to peddle their products. A common pharma marketing ploy is to ply patients with ads (in pubs, online and on the air) pushing treatments for, say, “erectile dysfunction” or "gastroesophageal reflux disease"  instead of advertisting a therapy for impotence or heartburn. The reason: it makes consumers believe they have a serious ailment that requires urgent medical intervention instead of taking other simple measures such as changing their diet.

Gary Stix, Scientific American's neuroscience and psychology editor, commissions, edits and reports on emerging advances and technologies that have propelled brain science to the forefront of the biological sciences. Developments chronicled in dozens of cover stories, feature articles and news stories, document groundbreaking neuroimaging techniques that reveal what happens in the brain while you are immersed in thought; the arrival of brain implants that alleviate mood disorders like depression; lab-made brains; psychological resilience; meditation; the intricacies of sleep; the new era for psychedelic drugs and artificial intelligence and growing insights leading to an understanding of our conscious selves. Before taking over the neuroscience beat, Stix, as Scientific American's special projects editor, oversaw the magazine's annual single-topic special issues, conceiving of and producing issues on Einstein, Darwin, climate change, nanotechnology and the nature of time. The issue he edited on time won a National Magazine Award. Besides mind and brain coverage, Stix has edited or written cover stories on Wall Street quants, building the world's tallest building, Olympic training methods, molecular electronics, what makes us human and the things you should and should not eat. Stix started a monthly column, Working Knowledge, that gave the reader a peek at the design and function of common technologies, from polygraph machines to Velcro. It eventually became the magazine's Graphic Science column. He also initiated a column on patents and intellectual property and another on the genesis of the ingenious ideas underlying new technologies in fields like electronics and biotechnology. Stix is the author with his wife, Miriam Lacob, of a technology primer called Who Gives a Gigabyte: A Survival Guide to the Technologically Perplexed (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).

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