Patent EA-001835-B1 (EA)
Title: Computerized medical diagnosis (variants)
Inventor: ILIFF EDWIN C
IPC: G06F19/00
Filed: 1997-07-11
Abstract: 1. A computerized diagnostic method, comprising the steps of: providing to a computer a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a list of questions, wherein the symptoms and the questions may be different for each disease; repetitively asking questions from selected ones of the question lists to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease; adjusting the order of asking questions from the selected question lists to provide a question flow unique to a patient's medical condition; and determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 2. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the symptom is established based on the presence or absence of one or more other symptoms. 3. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the presence of a selected set of symptoms adds additional weight to the accumulated total weight of at least one of the diseases. 4. The method defined in claim 1, wherein a symptom at a first selected time of the diagnostic process is weighted differently than the symptom at a second selected time of the process. 5. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the weight of a symptom reported at a first severity is different than the weight of the symptom reported at a second severity. 6. The method defined in claim 1, wherein a selected set of symptoms occurring in a specified sequence over time lends a different accumulated weight to the total weight than the accumulation of the individual weights of the selected set of symptoms not occurring in the specified sequence. 7. The method defined in claim 1, wherein a sequence of an onset or ending of a selected set of symptoms lends a different weight to the total weight than the accumulated individual weights of the selected symptoms alone. 8. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the disease is ruled-in for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 9. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the disease is ruled-out for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 10. The method defined in claim 1, wherein questions for diseases deemed urgent are asked before questions for non-urgent diseases. 11. The method defined in claim 1, additionally comprising the step of determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease is less than a rule-out threshold so as to eliminate a possible diagnosis. 12. The method defined in claim 8, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling-in the disease is provided. 13. The method defined in claim 9, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling-out the disease is provided. 14. The method defined in claim 1, wherein a plurality of diagnoses, each diagnosis having a degree of certainty, are accumulated into a patient specific differential diagnosis list. 15. The method defined in claim 1, wherein each question asked of the patient contributes an associated question weight to the accumulated total weight for at least one disease. 16. A computerized diagnostic method, comprising the steps of: providing to a computer a list of diseases, each disease associated with a first list of symptoms, and each symptom associated with a first list of questions, wherein the symptoms and the questions may be different for each disease; repetitively asking questions from selected ones of the question lists to elicit responses, the responses establishing symptoms, each established symptom contributing a weight to an accumulated total weight for a disease, and wherein further questions are repetitively asked to elicit further responses after a time interval, wherein the list of questions and the list of symptoms after the time interval may be different than the first list of questions and the first list of symptoms; adjusting the order of asking questions from the selected question lists to provide a question flow unique to a patient's medical condition; and determining whether the total accumulated weight for a disease reaches or passes a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis. 17. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the symptom is established based on the presence or absence of one or more other symptoms. 18. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the presence of a selected set of symptoms adds additional weight to the accumulated total weight of at least one of the diseases. 19. The method defined in claim 16, wherein a symptom at a first selected time of the diagnostic process is weighted differently than the symptom at a second selected time of the process. 20. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the weight of a symptom reported at a first severity is different than the weight of the symptom reported at a second severity. 21. The method defined in claim 16, wherein a selected set of symptoms occurring in a specified sequence over time lends a different accumulated weight to the total weight than the accumulation of the individual weights of the selected set of symptoms not occurring in the specified sequence. 22. The method defined in claim 16, wherein a sequence of an onset or ending of a selected set of symptoms lends a different weight to the total weight than the accumulated individual weights of the selected symptoms alone. 23. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the disease is ruled in for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 24. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the disease is ruled-out for further diagnostic inquiry based on the accumulated total weight. 25. The method defined in claim 16, wherein questions for diseases deemed urgent are asked before questions for non-urgent diseases. 26. The method defined in claim 16, additionally comprising the step of determining whether the accumulated total weight for a disease is less than a rule-out threshold so as to eliminate a possible diagnosis. 27. The method defined in claim 23, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling in t he disease is provided. 28. The method defined in claim 24, wherein a degree of certainty of ruling-out the disease is provided. 29. The method defined in claim 16, wherein a plurality of diagnoses, each diagnosis having a degree of certainty, are accumulated into a patient specific differential diagnosis list. 30. The method defined in claim 16, wherein each question asked of the patient contributes an associated question weight to the accumulated total weight of at least one disease. 31. The method defined in claim 16, wherein the time interval is determined by a physician. 32. The method defined in claim 31, wherein the physician determines a set of time intervals for a particular disease and wherein any one time interval may be of a different duration than the other time intervals. 33. The method defined in claim 32, wherein, for each determined time interval, the computer stores lists of symptoms and lists of questions for each symptom. 34. The method defined in claim 32, wherein the questions are designed to track the progression of a disease over time.