title: [Concept and classification of autonomic failure].
abstract: The autonomic nervous system innervates every visceral and peripheral organs in the body. It has as complex a neural organization in the brain, spinal cord, and periphery as the somatic nervous system, but remains largely involuntary or automatic. Accurate diagnosis is essential for proper management of autonomic failure but in attempting to classify autonomic disease there is a philosophical point to be borne in mind. Since it is very difficult to comprehend and evaluate systematically the aspect of autonomic dysfunction in each organ in various diseases, little works have been performed to classify autonomic diseases. We introduce several comprehensible works of classification of autonomic failure. We also presented some typical autonomic diseases according to those classifications in this paper.
authors.affiliation: First Department of Internal Medicine, Kumamoto University Medical School.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Araki
mesh_terms: D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology; D001342:Autonomic Nervous System Diseases / Q000145:classification* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans