Definition: Chronic Illness

In medicine, a chronic disease is a disease that is long-lasting or recurrent. The term chronic describes the course of the disease, or its rate of onset and development. A chronic course is distinguished from a recurrent course; recurrent diseases relapse repeatedly, with periods of remission in between. As an adjective, chronic can refer to a persistent and lasting medical condition. Chronicity is usually applied to a condition that lasts more than three months. Diabetes is a good example.

As of October 7 2007, approximately 1,299,010 people have died from a chronic disease this year.

The definition of a disease or causative condition may depend on the disease being chronic, and the term chronic will often, but not always appear in the description:

• Arthritis
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Chronic renal failure
• Hepatitis
• Leukemia
• lupus erythematosus
• POTS

Chronic as a metaphor

The term "chronic" is often used as a figure of speech, comparing a problem to a chronic disease; one of the more common uses is chronic inflation (in macroeconomics).