Course (medicine)

In medicine the term course generally takes one of two meanings, both reflecting the sense of "path that something or someone moves along...process or sequence or steps":

A course of medication is a period of continual treatment with drugs, sometimes with variable dosage and in particular combinations. For instance treatment with some drugs should not end abruptly. Instead, their course should end with a tapering dosage.
The course of a disease, also called its natural history, is the development of the disease in a patient, including the sequence and speed of the stages and forms they take. Typical courses of diseases include:

A patient may be said to be at the beginning, the middle or the end, or at a particular stage of the course of a disease or a treatment. A precursor is a sign or event that precedes the course or a particular stage in the course of a disease, for example chills often are precursors to fevers.