1. The turning point in the course of a disease, when it becomes clear whether the patient will recover or die.
2. A transition for better or for worse in the course of a disease; usually, indicated by a significant change in the intensity of signs and symptoms.
3. A turning point in the course of anything; a decisive or crucial time, stage, or event; for example, regarding events affecting the emotional state of a person after a death or divorce which can result in personality growth or personality disorganization.
4. A time of great danger or trouble, whose outcome decides whether possible bad consequences will follow.
5. Etymology: from Greek krisis, "turning point in a disease" (used as such by Hippocrates and Galen); literally, "judgment" from krinein, "to separate, to decide, to judge".

Severe stomach pain resulting from several possible causes: Abdominal crisis usually refers to pain which is produced by sickle cell anemia, bowel obstruction and / or perforation, hemorrhage, ectopic pregnancy, among other sicknesses.

The physiological and emotional changes which occur during teenage years and constitute a sudden demand on the ego for any unusual adaptational responses.

When a unit of government has an excess of government spending over income and is unable to borrow to finance it: For a national government, a fiscal crisis is most likely a result of a large accumulated debt together with doubts about its ability or willingness to pay back that debt.

Severe, recurring pains as the result of the degeneration of the spinal cord in anyone who has been suffering from syphilis: Such a visceral crisis is a complication which affects the spinal cord, causing abnormalities of sensations; sharp pains, incoordination, and incontinence; which appear several years after the infection.

Another version that describes the terrible conditions of this visceral crisis also involves what is known as tabes dorsalis which includes the lightning-like pain attacks, ataxia (wobbliness), deterioration of the nerves to the eyes (the optic nerves) leading to blindness, urinary incontinence, loss of the sense of one's physical balance, and the degeneration of the joints or the inability to feel pain because of nerve damage.