crisis

crisis

Pathol a sudden change, for better or worse, in the course of a disease

Crisis

 

a sharp turning point in the course of a disease that is accompanied by a drop in elevated body temperature and improvement in the patient’s condition.

A crisis usually occurs in acute-onset diseases with a rapid rise in temperature (croupous inflammation of the lungs, malaria, relapsing fever, and so forth). A crisis is associated with profuse sweating, marked weakness, and sometimes a temporary slowing of cardiac activity. A crisis is the opposite of a gradual subsidence of a pathological process and lowering in temperature called lysis. A crisis is to be distinguished from a pseudocrisis, in which there is only a temporary lowering of temperature and improvement in the patient’s condition. A critical drop in temperature may also occur as a result of removal of the suppurative focus from the patient’s body or administration of powerful antimicrobial agents.

crisis

[′krī·səs]

(medicine)

The turning point in the course of a disease.

(psychology)

The psychological events associated with a specific stage of life, as an identity crisis or developmental crisis.