Feeling a little bit achy today? Sore throat, perhaps? Do you have a nagging cough that won’t go away? Sounds like symptoms of a cold or flu, right? Or does it?
Perhaps our friends in the www domain have some other answers for us. But before you go searching, be prepared! If you spend enough time searching the internet for any given symptom, it’s likely that you’ll eventually end up with a grave prognosis.
There are a number of great resources online that can help you find an answer for some of the nagging questions you may have about certain symptoms that have been bothering you. In fact, this publication uses a number of them for research, including WebMD and the Mayo Clinic.
But there is a big difference between research and diagnosing yourself with a fatal illness.
As parents and caregivers, should we really be relying on the internet and our own judgment for sound medical care?
If it’s a non-emergency, general wellness inquiry, the resounding answer among doctors seems to be “yes,” according to doctors at the Harvard Medical Centre, as it encourages people to become better informed about the health of loved ones under their care.
For example, if a child has a pre-existing condition like asthma, a caregiver may access web resources to determine ways to make their home more comfortable. Someone else may research ways to make a home safer for their elderly mother.
But making a diagnosis based on information culled from the internet is never recommended.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when you start looking up medical information online:
• Quick access to electronic information can be a big help but be very careful about which internet resources you choose to consult. In particular, experts advise caution with open-access sites. Although Wikipedia, for example, is free and easy to navigate, the content is not peer reviewed and is not necessarily current. Some doctors believe that information published just five years ago can possibly be outdated. Another popular site, Google, is great for helping to locate a specialty society’s recommendations for managing a condition, for example. But results from a standard Google search shouldn’t be considered the last word on a topic.
• Most signs and symptoms are not exclusive to one disease. Doctors use these symptoms as well as their ‘clinical sense’ when making a diagnosis.
