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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Intensive care, old age, and the problem of death in America | | Author(s) | Sharon R Kaufman |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 38, no 6, December 1998 |
| Pages | pp 715-725 |
| Keywords | Death ; Terminal care ; Statutes ; Anthropological studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | This article - part of a larger anthropological investigation of how death occurs in the hospital - explores the relationship of deaths in old age in the intensive care unit (ICU) to the cultural conversation about the desire for "death with dignity". Based on participant observation, it provides three case studies that focus on the unfolding of events surrounding patient treatment, decision making, and family involvement. Cases are interpreted in the context of four sources of the culturally defined "problem" of death: how medicine operates as the dominant conceptual framework for understanding both old age and health; the power of the technological imperative to determine events; ambivalence regarding end-of-life goals; and the incommensurability of lay and medical knowledge. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010116205 A |
| Classmark | CW: LV: 6P: 3FA: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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