Normative medicine.

Abstract

Normative medicine is a new approach to health and disease based on Canguilhem's philosophy: The normal and the pathological. In the past, disease was nearly synonymous with ill health. Advancing technology reveals more and more pre-clinical aberrations that are not fully fledged diseases, and cannot be regarded as ill health. Medicine lacks clear guidelines for dealing with them. While competent in specifying how to treat, it generally fails to decide correctly when to intervene in the evolving process. This is the main source of medical iatrogenesis. Normative medicine is more concerned with health itself and less with diseases. It provides criteria when to intervene in the disease process.