Making It Count - Tracing Signs of Consciousness and Potentiality in Severe Brain Injury in Denmark.

IF 1.5 3区社会学 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY

Medical Anthropology Pub Date : 2024-02-17 Epub Date: 2024-01-11 DOI:10.1080/01459740.2023.2300080

Mette Terp Høybye, Lise Marie Andersen, Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Healthcare professionals use various technologies to evaluate and support patients who have suffered severe brain injuries. They integrate monitoring and sensory assessments into their clinical practice, and these assessments can have an impact on treatment decisions and prognostication. Responses from patients during different interactions are interpreted as "signs of consciousness" when considered contextually relevant. This study is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in specialized Danish intensive care units, where we explore how signs of consciousness are made to count through practices of enactment. We ethnographically trace how the clinical concept of potential influences the interpretation of signs of consciousness as a complex biosocial practice based on the biomedical assumption that consciousness is a vital indicator of what makes a life. The article provides insights into the potential for recovery as an emergent biosocial practice and contributes to a broader discussion within medical anthropology of the moral landscapes of clinical and experimental borderlands.

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让它发挥作用--追踪丹麦严重脑损伤患者的意识和潜能迹象。

医疗保健专业人员使用各种技术来评估和支持严重脑损伤患者。他们将监测和感官评估融入临床实践，这些评估可对治疗决策和预后产生影响。病人在不同互动过程中的反应可被解释为 "意识体征"，如果考虑到上下文相关性的话。本研究基于在丹麦专业重症监护病房进行的人类学实地考察，我们探讨了意识体征是如何通过颁布实践来计算的。我们以人种学的方式追踪了潜能的临床概念如何影响对意识体征的解释，意识体征是一种复杂的生物社会实践，其基础是生物医学假设，即意识是构成生命的重要指标。文章深入探讨了作为一种新兴生物社会实践的康复潜能，并有助于医学人类学对临床和实验边界地带的道德景观进行更广泛的讨论。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Medical Anthropology Multiple-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

4.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Medical Anthropology provides a global forum for scholarly articles on the social patterns of ill-health and disease transmission, and experiences of and knowledge about health, illness and wellbeing. These include the nature, organization and movement of peoples, technologies and treatments, and how inequalities pattern access to these. Articles published in the journal showcase the theoretical sophistication, methodological soundness and ethnographic richness of contemporary medical anthropology. Through the publication of empirical articles and editorials, we encourage our authors and readers to engage critically with the key debates of our time. Medical Anthropology invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, reflecting the diversity and the expanding interests and concerns of researchers in the field.