Several peers drew attention to the role played by adverts in helping early diagnosis of serious conditions.

BBC: Public health campaigns to remain in reformed NHS

Doctors will then run a set of table-top diagnostic tests which will give a near instant diagnosis for most conditions.

BBC: Our medieval medicine

It is widely accepted as giving an accurate diagnosis of these conditions.

ECONOMIST: Diagnosing comas

After an initial evaluation, your doctor may refer you to a doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions that affect the brain and nervous system (neurologist).

CNN: Hydrocephalus

Though experts encourage diagnosing children as early as possible, with some saying that 1-year-olds can be identified as being at high risk for autism-related conditions, they caution that early diagnosis is challenging and some children may be mislabeled.

WSJ: Who Can Outgrow or Recover From Autism

Other key patents IBM obtained last year were for predicting traffic problems by using GPS and communicating the delays to drives, finding patterns across disparate data sources and an invention for enabling analysis of medical data from multiple sources to improve the research, diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.

FORBES: IBM's 20th Year Of Record U.S. Patents Leads With Cognitive Computing

In complex cases where the diagnosis is unclear or there is a suspicion of coexisting conditions, especially if there is a history of head injury or other brain trauma, a SPECT scan can help.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Delivered from Distraction'

Early diagnosis and treatment in men offer better protection against osteoporosis and other related conditions.

CNN: Male hypogonadism

To date, 32 have received a provisional or final diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and another 101 have been found to have other conditions that involve developmental delay.

BBC: Screen may spot autism in one-year-olds