Non-Surgical Treatment

Commonly known as a physical examination, propaedeutic procedures are basic hands-on methods used by a doctor to get a general sense of a person’s health and wellbeing. Some examples include:

• looking at the person to check their appearance
• touching areas of the person’s body (palpation) to check for abnormalities such as pain, tenderness, swelling, masses or lumps
• tapping areas of the person’s body (percussion) to check for the absence or presence of air or liquid inside a body cavity
• listening to internal body sounds with a stethoscope (auscultation), such as the sounds made by the heart, lungs or abdominal organs
• taking note of the person’s vital signs, such as temperature and blood pressure

Diagnostic procedures are tests that a doctor uses to help diagnose a person’s medical problem or to measure the severity of the problem. The results of diagnostic procedures also help a doctor or other health professional to plan the best course of treatment.

Many diagnostic procedures are available. Some examples include:

• body fluid tests – such as blood tests and urine tests
• non-invasive scans – such as x-ray examinations, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound and computed tomography (CT)
• electrographs – a graph made by measuring electrical activity within the body. Examples include electrocardiography or ECG (heart) and electroencephalography or EEG (brain)
• angiograms – a type of special x-ray that involves an injection of a contrast dye to better define the blood vessels. Examples include coronary (heart) angiogram, cerebral (brain) angiogram and pulmonary (lung) angiogram
• endoscopy – a slender tube (endoscope) is inserted into the body, which allows the doctor to make a visual inspection. Examples of endoscopic procedures include colonoscopy (bowel), gastroscopy (stomach), cystoscopy (bladder), bronchoscopy (airways of the lung) and laparoscopy (abdomen).

Surgery may also be used as a diagnostic tool. For example, the operation called laparotomy involves opening the abdominal cavity to explore the organs for disease or injury.

Therapeutic procedures are treatments that a doctor or other health professional uses to help, improve, cure or restore function to a person. This may be to repair the effects of injury, disease or congenital malfunctions (birth defects). Non-surgical therapeutic procedures are generally less invasive than surgical options.

A vast array of treatments is available including:

• medicines
• physical therapies
• radiation therapies.

If non-surgical procedures cannot provide appropriate or effective treatment for a particular condition or injury, surgery may need to be considered.

Rehabilitation procedures are treatments that help to improve, maintain or restore a person’s physical function. They are also known as ‘allied health’ therapies. Examples of health professionals who offer rehabilitative care include:

• physiotherapist
• speech pathologist
• dietitian
• occupational therapist
• vision loss occupational therapist.

Non-surgical cosmetic procedures use many of the same techniques as therapeutic procedures, but the aim is to improve a person’s physical appearance for aesthetic reasons. A person may choose to have cosmetic treatment (surgical or non-surgical) to improve their body image, self-esteem and psychological wellbeing. It is important to discuss benefits, risks and your expectations with your doctor before making a decision to go ahead with a cosmetic procedure.

Some medical treatments or techniques can be used for more than one purpose. For example, an endoscopy is the insertion of a viewing tube (called an endoscope) inside the body. The doctor may use an endoscopic procedure to make a diagnosis. They may take a sample of tissue (biopsy) for later analysis in a laboratory.

At other times, endoscopy is used to perform minimally invasive surgery – for example, a diseased organ (such as the gall bladder) may be removed. A doctor may use an endoscopic procedure to both diagnose and treat a condition during the same operation.