In health-related fields, a reference range or reference interval usually describes the variations of a measurement or value in healthy individuals. It is a basis for a physician or other health professional to interpret a set of results for a particular patient.
The standard definition of a reference range (usually referred to if not otherwise specified) basically originates in what is most prevalent in a reference group taken from the population. However, there are also optimal health ranges that are those that appear to have the optimal health impact on people.
Read more about Reference Range: Standard Definition, Optimal Health Range, One-sided Cut-off Values, General Drawbacks, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words reference and/or range:
“I think, for the rest of my life, I shall refrain from looking up things. It is the most ravenous time-snatcher I know. You pull one book from the shelf, which carries a hint or a reference that sends you posthaste to another book, and that to successive others. It is incredible, the number of books you hopefully open and disappointedly close, only to take down another with the same result.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)
“Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)