Renée L. Beard
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479800117
- eISBN:
- 9781479855377
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479800117.001.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
Alzheimer’s is ubiquitous. Stories of the heart-wrenching drudgery of care giving, escalating incidence rates, and the new path to a cure just around the corner are everywhere. Yet we rarely see or ...
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Alzheimer’s is ubiquitous. Stories of the heart-wrenching drudgery of care giving, escalating incidence rates, and the new path to a cure just around the corner are everywhere. Yet we rarely see or hear from anyone actually living with AD. The negative portrayals, apocalyptic projections, and promise of cures in the mass media and medical outlets are grossly inaccurate. But they are also an assault on the identities of those with Alzheimer’s. Drawing on an 18-month ethnography observing cognitive evaluations and post-diagnosis interviews with nearly 100 forgetful individuals, this book aims to chip away at this pervasive and persistent destructive trend by revealing what life with memory loss is really like. While diagnosed seniors are ultimately socialized into medicalized interpretations of their forgetfulness, most participants achieve a graceful balance between accepting the medical label and resisting the social stigma that accompanies it. In contrast to what we are led to believe, people with early AD actively and deliberately navigate their lives. Interviews with specialty clinicians and staff from the Alzheimer’s Association reveal that a biomedical ethos generates tensions that constrain the roles older forgetful people can play within these settings. Clinicians and Association staff perpetuate “myths” about “self-loss,” “impending cures,” and the economic and emotional “burden” even if they do not personally believe them. Living with AD ultimately requires managing stigma and presumptions of incompetence in addition to the associated symptoms. Unfortunately, we, the well-meaning public, and not their dementia become the major barrier to a happy life for those affected.Less
Alzheimer’s is ubiquitous. Stories of the heart-wrenching drudgery of care giving, escalating incidence rates, and the new path to a cure just around the corner are everywhere. Yet we rarely see or hear from anyone actually living with AD. The negative portrayals, apocalyptic projections, and promise of cures in the mass media and medical outlets are grossly inaccurate. But they are also an assault on the identities of those with Alzheimer’s. Drawing on an 18-month ethnography observing cognitive evaluations and post-diagnosis interviews with nearly 100 forgetful individuals, this book aims to chip away at this pervasive and persistent destructive trend by revealing what life with memory loss is really like. While diagnosed seniors are ultimately socialized into medicalized interpretations of their forgetfulness, most participants achieve a graceful balance between accepting the medical label and resisting the social stigma that accompanies it. In contrast to what we are led to believe, people with early AD actively and deliberately navigate their lives. Interviews with specialty clinicians and staff from the Alzheimer’s Association reveal that a biomedical ethos generates tensions that constrain the roles older forgetful people can play within these settings. Clinicians and Association staff perpetuate “myths” about “self-loss,” “impending cures,” and the economic and emotional “burden” even if they do not personally believe them. Living with AD ultimately requires managing stigma and presumptions of incompetence in addition to the associated symptoms. Unfortunately, we, the well-meaning public, and not their dementia become the major barrier to a happy life for those affected.
Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520218246
- eISBN:
- 9780520935228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520218246.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter shows just how deep narrative runs in the daily medical world. It studies the central moral dimensions of medical practice, while noting that narrative seems to provide the place where ...
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This chapter shows just how deep narrative runs in the daily medical world. It studies the central moral dimensions of medical practice, while noting that narrative seems to provide the place where difficult and disturbing moral issues can be raised. It introduces the notion of “narrative practices,” and stresses the point that the “medicalized object” is formed in narrative terms. The chapter also uses narrative in order to study the “temporal dimension of disease and the struggle to find coherent plots”.Less
This chapter shows just how deep narrative runs in the daily medical world. It studies the central moral dimensions of medical practice, while noting that narrative seems to provide the place where difficult and disturbing moral issues can be raised. It introduces the notion of “narrative practices,” and stresses the point that the “medicalized object” is formed in narrative terms. The chapter also uses narrative in order to study the “temporal dimension of disease and the struggle to find coherent plots”.
Renée L. Beard
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479800117
- eISBN:
- 9781479855377
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479800117.003.0007
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
Interviews with those who joined support groups and research studies reveal that persons with AD strategically employ the diagnostic label (or not) as they see fit. Study participants are not passive ...
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Interviews with those who joined support groups and research studies reveal that persons with AD strategically employ the diagnostic label (or not) as they see fit. Study participants are not passive recipients of the disease label; rather they deliberately embark upon the path of becoming Alzheimer’s patients. Diagnosis causes increased tension over the management of self and others as individuals undergo considerable socialization into medicalized interpretations of their experiences. Most of the forgetful respondents in this study ultimately help accomplish the goal of modern medicine, as support groups and research studies model how to monitor and control both themselves and each other through a biomedical lens. Yet this involvement also allows participants to feel proactive in the face of memory impairment and normalize their often erratic behaviors and experiences. By placing hope in finding a cure and by participating in research, patients support and potentially shape biomedicine.Less
Interviews with those who joined support groups and research studies reveal that persons with AD strategically employ the diagnostic label (or not) as they see fit. Study participants are not passive recipients of the disease label; rather they deliberately embark upon the path of becoming Alzheimer’s patients. Diagnosis causes increased tension over the management of self and others as individuals undergo considerable socialization into medicalized interpretations of their experiences. Most of the forgetful respondents in this study ultimately help accomplish the goal of modern medicine, as support groups and research studies model how to monitor and control both themselves and each other through a biomedical lens. Yet this involvement also allows participants to feel proactive in the face of memory impairment and normalize their often erratic behaviors and experiences. By placing hope in finding a cure and by participating in research, patients support and potentially shape biomedicine.
Lydia S. Dugdale
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029124
- eISBN:
- 9780262328579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029124.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
At various points throughout history, for reasons of plague, pestilence, and war, death has dominated human consciousness. This was especially apparent during the Bubonic Plague of the fourteenth ...
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At various points throughout history, for reasons of plague, pestilence, and war, death has dominated human consciousness. This was especially apparent during the Bubonic Plague of the fourteenth century, which claimed the lives of up to two-thirds of Europeans. The Catholic Church responded by issuing texts, collectively known as the Ars moriendi, to guide the laity in its preparation for death. These books circulated widely throughout Europe, and were adopted and modified by both the religious and the non-religious, always with a view to preparing to die well. But as late nineteenth century Western society grew increasingly concerned with the art of living well, practices concerned with dying were largely forgotten or neglected, and death became medicalized. The field of bioethics has, since its earliest days, debated end-of-life issues, but it has not definitively aided the broader public in preparing for death. This book looks to bioethics to frame a modern Ars moriendi – one that can aid an aging, plural population to prepare for death and to support its members through the dying process.Less
At various points throughout history, for reasons of plague, pestilence, and war, death has dominated human consciousness. This was especially apparent during the Bubonic Plague of the fourteenth century, which claimed the lives of up to two-thirds of Europeans. The Catholic Church responded by issuing texts, collectively known as the Ars moriendi, to guide the laity in its preparation for death. These books circulated widely throughout Europe, and were adopted and modified by both the religious and the non-religious, always with a view to preparing to die well. But as late nineteenth century Western society grew increasingly concerned with the art of living well, practices concerned with dying were largely forgotten or neglected, and death became medicalized. The field of bioethics has, since its earliest days, debated end-of-life issues, but it has not definitively aided the broader public in preparing for death. This book looks to bioethics to frame a modern Ars moriendi – one that can aid an aging, plural population to prepare for death and to support its members through the dying process.
Heather Houser
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165143
- eISBN:
- 9780231537360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165143.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter studies the functions of disgust through the varieties of detachment that circulate through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996). In this story world, detachment is not only a ...
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This chapter studies the functions of disgust through the varieties of detachment that circulate through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996). In this story world, detachment is not only a social and ethical problem; it is also an environmental one. Psychological and material practices of detachment underpin U.S. policies of environmental manipulation that poison bodies, and it also motivates the novel's major plots and distinguishes its style. Against detachment, the novel deploys disgust as an affective correlate to a medicalized environmental imagination. In detailing the functions of disgust in Infinite Jest, the chapter reconciles competing positions within affect theory on whether the feeling is attractive or repulsive. It is the dual aspect of pulling in and pushing away that makes this affect an unlikely hindrance to detachment, and the social and environmental injustices that it promotes.Less
This chapter studies the functions of disgust through the varieties of detachment that circulate through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996). In this story world, detachment is not only a social and ethical problem; it is also an environmental one. Psychological and material practices of detachment underpin U.S. policies of environmental manipulation that poison bodies, and it also motivates the novel's major plots and distinguishes its style. Against detachment, the novel deploys disgust as an affective correlate to a medicalized environmental imagination. In detailing the functions of disgust in Infinite Jest, the chapter reconciles competing positions within affect theory on whether the feeling is attractive or repulsive. It is the dual aspect of pulling in and pushing away that makes this affect an unlikely hindrance to detachment, and the social and environmental injustices that it promotes.
Stephen J. Morse
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262015509
- eISBN:
- 9780262295635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015509.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter begins with the story of Mr. Leroy Powell, a genuine addict whose criminal responsibility was addressed in a popular Supreme Court case in 1968. This story is presented to lay the ...
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This chapter begins with the story of Mr. Leroy Powell, a genuine addict whose criminal responsibility was addressed in a popular Supreme Court case in 1968. This story is presented to lay the groundwork for the issues addressed in this chapter. It is determined how and in what cases addiction affects criminal responsibility, after identifying the criteria for compulsion and the criteria for criminal responsibility. The question is also asked whether the law should adopt a medicalized view of addiction or not. It is also shown that the criteria for criminal responsibility, like that for addiction, are all behavioral, suggesting that any scientific information about addiction must be “translated” into the law’s psychological criteria.Less
This chapter begins with the story of Mr. Leroy Powell, a genuine addict whose criminal responsibility was addressed in a popular Supreme Court case in 1968. This story is presented to lay the groundwork for the issues addressed in this chapter. It is determined how and in what cases addiction affects criminal responsibility, after identifying the criteria for compulsion and the criteria for criminal responsibility. The question is also asked whether the law should adopt a medicalized view of addiction or not. It is also shown that the criteria for criminal responsibility, like that for addiction, are all behavioral, suggesting that any scientific information about addiction must be “translated” into the law’s psychological criteria.
Jens Schlieter
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190888848
- eISBN:
- 9780190888879
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190888848.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter focuses on a long-term development in Western societies addressed as “privatized death,” namely, the assignment of the dying into hospitals and other institutions. This trend, mirrored ...
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This chapter focuses on a long-term development in Western societies addressed as “privatized death,” namely, the assignment of the dying into hospitals and other institutions. This trend, mirrored in the works of French historian Philippe Ariès and psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, so the chapter argues, served as a “push factor” for articulating near-death experiences. Near-death experiences can be in part read as a “spiritual protest” against alienated, anonymous dying in institutions and the “materialist” take of modern biomedicine of merely prolonging life. This protest is also present in criticizing the “denial of death.”Less
This chapter focuses on a long-term development in Western societies addressed as “privatized death,” namely, the assignment of the dying into hospitals and other institutions. This trend, mirrored in the works of French historian Philippe Ariès and psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, so the chapter argues, served as a “push factor” for articulating near-death experiences. Near-death experiences can be in part read as a “spiritual protest” against alienated, anonymous dying in institutions and the “materialist” take of modern biomedicine of merely prolonging life. This protest is also present in criticizing the “denial of death.”
