Computer Aided Diagnostic Systems for Managing Typhoid Fever: A Review of Diagnosis Techniques

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) has been of immense benefits in all areas of human endeavours and medicine is not an exceptional case as it has been used in bringing hospitals to homes. A number of computer aided diagnostic systems have been developed to carry out diagnosis, provide therapy or perform both. Most of these systems are desirable due to many factors which include shortages of medical experts, hospitals and medical equipment. There are hundreds of such systems today managing diseases as standalone or web-based or mobile application in which Typhoid Fever is not left out. Typhoid Fever has been identified as one of the major killers and common diseases which kill more than the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Though drugs are available for the treatment of Typhoid Fever as against the dreaded (AIDS) but the large number of deaths are as a result of poor or misdiagnosis or no diagnosis at all as a result of shortage of medical expert, hospitals and equipment among others. It is good to use IT in medicine but the practice must be done with care. It was observed in this work that some of the available computer aided diagnostic systems on Typhoid Fever are mere software development exercise without any consultation with medical experts, strong diagnosis background and deployment of computational tools or predictive algorithms. Six basic stages or elements that can make a diagnostic system reliable were suggested in this work for researchers working in the area of developing Computer Aided Diagnostic and Therapy Systems.