therapeutic
Meaning of therapeutic: The label marks intent rather than outcome, so a therapeutic dose is one aimed at benefit, not one guaranteed to deliver it.
Definition of therapeutic
Therapeutic describes anything whose purpose is to treat disease, relieve symptoms or support recovery. The word is applied to medicines, operations, devices, exercise and diet alike, since it marks intent rather than any particular method. Its usual contrast is diagnostic, which describes an action taken to find out what is wrong rather than to change it.
What is a therapeutic range?
Most drugs help across a band of concentrations and cause harm above it. That band is the therapeutic range, and the gap between the amount that helps and the amount that harms is the therapeutic index. A wide index makes a drug forgiving, so ordinary variation in absorption or kidney function changes little. A narrow index leaves almost no margin, and small shifts caused by another medicine, a change in diet or a new illness can push a person from benefit into toxicity or out of the range altogether. Drugs of that second kind are followed with blood concentration measurements, an approach called therapeutic drug monitoring, because the dose swallowed is a poor guide to the amount actually circulating.
How does therapeutic differ from the words it sits beside?
| Word | Purpose of the action | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Therapeutic | Change the course of a problem that already exists | Draining an abscess |
| Diagnostic | Find out what the problem is | A diagnostic procedure such as a biopsy |
| Prophylactic | Prevent a problem that has not happened | An antibiotic given before surgery |
| Palliative | Relieve symptoms without altering the disease | Pain control in advanced illness |
One procedure can occupy two boxes at once. A colonoscopy that finds a polyp and removes it in the same pass is diagnostic and therapeutic together.
Where else does the word turn up?
A therapeutic effect is the intended benefit, as opposed to a side effect, which is any other consequence of the same treatment. A therapeutic trial means starting a treatment partly to see whether the response confirms the suspected diagnosis. The therapeutic alliance describes the working relationship between a patient and clinician. Therapeutic touch uses the word in a different sense again, as the name of a specific complementary practice rather than as a general description.
Used in a sentence
The medication dose was adjusted to remain within its therapeutic range.
Good to know
A medication's therapeutic range is the span of concentrations expected to produce benefit without excessive harm, and how wide that span is differs enormously from one medication to another.
Word origin
Where “therapeutic” comes from
From Greek therapeutikos, derived from therapeuein, meaning to attend to or to treat.