Patent ID: 7149756

Claim:
A method for determining the probable existence of disease comprising: a) providing a plurality of patient Body Parts; b) associating with each Body Part a list of diseases, and as to each disease in the list of diseases, associating a list of Symptoms which indicate said disease; c) associating with each disease in each list of diseases a disease numerical value equal to the number of persons who have been confirmed to exhibit said each disease; d) associating with each Symptom in each list of Symptoms, which indicate a specific disease, a symptom numerical value equal to the disease numerical value of said specific disease; e) calculating an initial probable existence of each disease in each list of diseases by determining the quotient of the disease numerical value of each disease divided by the sum of all disease numerical values for all diseases; f) calculating a total symptom numerical value for all identical Symptoms in all lists of Symptoms; g) identifying a set of Symptoms, and each Symptom's associated total symptom numerical value, which comprise all Symptoms associated to each Body Part; h) prompting a patient to identify a target Body Part which the patient associates to his or her physical or mental condition; i) identifying a target Symptom from the set of Symptoms associated to the target Body Part which has the highest total symptom numerical value; j) generating a question presented to the patient which asks the patient if the target Symptom is indicated or is not indicated; k) prompting the patient to respond to the question; l) updating the probable existence of each disease in each list of diseases based upon the patient's answer in accordance with the following formula: Pr ⁢ { D  ⁢ S } = Pr ⁢ { D } ⁢ Pr ⁢ { S  ⁢ D } Pr ⁢ { S } where D is a disease and S is a Symptom; m) identifying a qualifying disease in each list of diseases with a probability greater than a predetermined threshold value, and adding each Symptom associated to said qualifying disease to the set of Symptoms associated to the target Body Part if the Symptom to be added is not already in the set; n) deleting the target Symptom from the set of Symptoms associated to the target Body Part; o) repeating steps i through n above until each Symptom contained in the set of Symptoms associated to the Body Part is deleted; and p) generating a list of diseases and the probable existence of each disease in the list, including the identity of a most probable disease having the highest probability of existence.