What's in a Disease Name?
What’s in a Disease Name? New study finds medical namesakes are losing their prominence in neurology, replaced by increasing reliance on clear, descriptive labels. Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis? Bell’s palsy or idiopathic facial paralysis? Machado-Joseph disease or spinocerebellar ataxia type III? A new study finds neurologists are starting to prefer the latter, descriptive option when referring to a disease as opposed to the version named after a person. “In medicine we often use unnecessarily complicated language,” says lead author Christopher Becker...