rather than more smarta*** comments about strange attractors what about a
serious question. Apart from being fascinating, what can chaos theory teach
us about medicine?
The only two occurences I have seen investigated have been to do with some
theories about cardiac electrophysiology, which seem plausible from a
distance but I haven't looked closely, and bipolar disorder where a neat
longitudinal study demonstrated periodicity and scalability suggestive of
fractal patterns in mood swings in patients but not controls.
Do those of you who "know" (Ahmad, Declan anyone else) have any ideas about
other problems. I actually suspect much behavioural illness eg depression,
physical symptoms no physical cause, develops strange attractors over time
but it may be a complicated way of explaining common sense.
Bet this post could generate even less replies than my average!
Yours pretentiously
Chris
Dr Chris Burton
GP, Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire
Member of WestNet, The West of Scotland Primary Care Research Network
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|