Every clinician knows that making a diagnosis can be one of the most challenging tasks when a patient seeks care.
Treatment begins with a working diagnosis, which is confirmed by clinical examination and possible laboratory and imaging examination as the actual diagnosis. Diagnosis is followed by formulating a treatment plan and the implementation of the treatment itself.

Diagnosis begins by listening to the patient’s history of his symptoms and making observations of local or general clinical findings.

Problem-based diagnostics help the clinician to assess the underlying causes of symptoms and findings and possible differential diagnostic options.

Diagnostic reasoning is based on the knowledge and experience that the dentist/physician has from similar symptoms and findings. Findings, patient history and symptoms form the basis of a working diagnosis which is then verified through additional tests and treatment procedures. The most likely cause is thus identified through a process of elimination.

Classical signs of infection include redness (rubor), swelling (tumor), temperature (calor), pain (dolor) and loss of function (functio laesa). In turn, a range of individual symptoms can be traced back to these basic symptoms.