A regimen is a plan, or course of action such as a
diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake
** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...
,
exercise
Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness.
It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athletic s ...
or
medical treatment
A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis.
As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...
. A
low-salt diet is a regimen. A course of
penicillin
Penicillins (P, PCN or PEN) are a group of β-lactam antibiotics originally obtained from ''Penicillium'' moulds, principally '' P. chrysogenum'' and '' P. rubens''. Most penicillins in clinical use are synthesised by P. chrysogenum using ...
is a regimen, and there are many
chemotherapy regimen
A chemotherapy regimen is a regimen for chemotherapy, defining the drugs to be used, their dosage, the frequency and duration of treatments, and other considerations. In modern oncology, many regimens combine several chemotherapy drugs in comb ...
s in the treatment of
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...
.
History
The work, ''Regimen in Acute Diseases'', attributed to the ancient Greek physician,
Hippocrates of Cos, describes the types and usage of medical regimens in his era (400 BCE). This is perhaps the first appearance of the
term.
PubMed
PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain ...
at the
US National Library of Medicine
The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library.
Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...
lists over 220,000 articles using the term "regimen" from 1892 to January 2013. In the context of medieval medicine, regimen referred to the careful management of habits, diet, and schedule to keep the four
humors in equilibrium. By manipulating the six non-naturals (airs, diet, sleep, exercise, evacuation, and emotion) a person could keep track of their physical and mental wellbeing by attending to regimen.
Usage in statistics
In economic statistics, a regimen refers to the selected goods and/or services priced for the purpose of compiling a
price index. The most well known example is the
consumer price index.
References
Therapy
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