Prenosological Diagnosis as a Method to Evaluate the Functional States at the Boundary between Health and Disease and Its Place in Space and Terrestrial Medicine

Prenosological diagnosis as a new concept originated in space medicine. Roman Baevsky was one of the founders. The concept suggests assessing health quality rather than diagnosing disorders and recognizes four adaptation states: satisfactory adaptation, strained adaptation mechanisms, unsatisfactory adaptation, and adaptation failure. Mass prenosological examinations of more than 25 thousand people in the period between 1975 and 2005 showed a high efficiency of the approach in assessing both personal and population health states. It was found that approximately 20–30% of the subjects required medical care. Recent decades witnessed a catastrophic increase in the level of stress level, progressive deadaptation, and a transition from health to disease within six months. Automated prenosological diagnosis systems approved by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation can be employed in prophylactic examinations at the paramedical stage to triage the subjects by adaptation level and need for medical care. In future, medicine will certainly focus on the well-being of healthy people and prenosological diagnosis will gain acceptance and further progress.