| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Negotiating natural death in intensive care | | Author(s) | Jane Elizabeth Seymour |
| Journal title | Social Science & Medicine, vol 51, 2000 |
| Pages | pp 1241-1252 |
| Keywords | Death ; Terminal care ; Rights [elderly]. |
| Annotation | Recent empirical evidence of barriers to palliative care in acute hospital settings shows that dying patients may receive invasive medical treatments immediately before death, in spite of evidence of their poor prognosis. This paper draws on ethnographic research to examine the way in which the problems attendant with such treatment are resolved during medical work within intensive care. An analysis of observational case study data suggests that the negotiation of natural death in intensive care hinges on four strategies: establishing a "technical" definition of dying; alignment of the courses of technical and bodily dying to ensure that the events of non-treatment have no perceived causative link to death; balancing medical action with non-action; and involving a patient's companions and nursing staff in the decision-making process. (OFFPRINT) (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010402217 A |
| Classmark | CW: LV: IKR * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|