Load Tolerance as a Quantitative Estimate of Health

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Clinical tolerance tests are visualized as load-output studies of specific body processes. Increases in input loads result in an increasing fraction of tested subjects demonstrating the stigmata of failure in the tested process. Failure is thus seen as a relative event, reflecting the balance between process capacity and process input load and resistance, rather than as an absolute value of process output. Acquired disease is visualized as a continuum of values representing the variable balance between capacity, load and resistance, rather than as a quantal series of discrete states. The measurement of load-tolerance of a specific body process offers a. quantitative estimate of the magnitude of health within the process. The throughput-interaction model used is analogous to those used in other disciplines to study behavior varying with time.