An Expert System Approach to Eating Disorder Diagnosis

摘要

Medical diagnosis in general is a hard task, requiring significant skill and expertise. Psychological diagnosis, in particular, is peculiar for several reasons: since the illness is mental rather than physical, no instrumental measurements can be done, more subjectivity is involved in the diagnostic process, and there is more chance of comorbidity. Eating disorders, specifically, are a quite relevant kind of psychological illness. This paper proposes an Expert Systems-based solution to the above issues. The Expert System was built upon a proprietary general inference engine, that provides several features and reasoning strategies, allowing to properly tune their exploitation through appropriate parameter settings. Qualitative analysis of the prototype revealed interesting insights, and suggests further extensions and improvements.