Somaticization, the making and unmaking of minded persons and the fabrication of dementia

TY - JOUR

T1 - Somaticization, the making and unmaking of minded persons and the fabrication of dementia

AU - Latimer, Joanna Elizabeth

AU - Hillman, Alexandra

N1 - © The Author(s) 2019. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2019/4/1

Y1 - 2019/4/1

N2 - This article examines the strategies by which the different and variable signs of failing mental powers become known sufficiently for ‘dementia’ to be made into a stable bio-clinical entity, that can be tested, diagnosed and perhaps one day even treated. Drawing on data from ethnographic observations in memory clinics, together with interviews with associated scientists and clinicians, we document the challenges that clinicians face across the clinical and research domain in making dementia a stable object of their investigation. We illustrate how the pressure for early diagnoses of dementia creates tensions between the scientific representations of early dementia and its diagnosis in the clinic. Our aim is to highlight the extent to which the work of diagnosing dementia involves an intricate process of smoothing out seemingly insurmountable problems, such as the notoriously elusive connections between brain/mind and body/person. Furthermore, we show that a part of this process involves enrolling patients as minded, agentic subjects, the very subjects who are excluded from dementia science research in pursuit of biomarkers for the pre-clinical detection of dementia.

AB - This article examines the strategies by which the different and variable signs of failing mental powers become known sufficiently for ‘dementia’ to be made into a stable bio-clinical entity, that can be tested, diagnosed and perhaps one day even treated. Drawing on data from ethnographic observations in memory clinics, together with interviews with associated scientists and clinicians, we document the challenges that clinicians face across the clinical and research domain in making dementia a stable object of their investigation. We illustrate how the pressure for early diagnoses of dementia creates tensions between the scientific representations of early dementia and its diagnosis in the clinic. Our aim is to highlight the extent to which the work of diagnosing dementia involves an intricate process of smoothing out seemingly insurmountable problems, such as the notoriously elusive connections between brain/mind and body/person. Furthermore, we show that a part of this process involves enrolling patients as minded, agentic subjects, the very subjects who are excluded from dementia science research in pursuit of biomarkers for the pre-clinical detection of dementia.

KW - dementia

KW - diagnosis

KW - somaticization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062705712&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0306312719834069

DO - 10.1177/0306312719834069

M3 - Article

SN - 0306-3127

VL - 49

SP - 208

EP - 226

JO - Social Studies of Science

JF - Social Studies of Science

IS - 2

ER -