NORMATIVE MEDICINE

Normative medicine is a new approach to health and disease based on Ca nguilhem's philosophy: The normal and the pathological. In the past, d isease was nearly synonymous with ill health. Advancing technology rev eals 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 th e evolving process. This is the main source of medical iatrogenesis. N ormative medicine is more concerned with health itself and less with d iseases. It provides criteria when to intervene in the disease process .