Russ Ann J, Shim Janet K, Kaufman Sharon R
Institute for Health and Aging, Box 0646, University of California, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0646, USA.
Med Anthropol. 2005 Oct-Dec;24(4):297-324. doi: 10.1080/01459740500330639.
Increasingly, in the United States, lives are being extended at ever-older ages through the implementation of routine medical procedures such as renal dialysis. This paper discusses the lives and experiences of a number of individuals 70 years of age and older at two dialysis units in California. It considers what kind of life it is that is being sustained and prolonged in these units, the meanings of the time gained through (and lost to) dialysis for older people, and the relationship of "normal" life outside the units to an exceptional state on the inside that some patients see as not-quite-life. Highlighting the unique dimensions of gerontological time on chronic life support, the article offers a phenomenology of the end of life as that end is drawn out, deferred by technological means, and effaced by the ethos and experiential course of dialysis treatment.
在美国,通过实施诸如肾透析等常规医疗程序,越来越多老年人的生命得以延长。本文探讨了加利福尼亚州两个透析中心一些70岁及以上老人的生活与经历。它思考了在这些透析中心所维持和延长的是怎样一种生活,透析为老年人带来(以及失去)的时间的意义,以及透析中心外的“正常”生活与一些患者视为非完全生活的中心内特殊状态之间的关系。文章突出了老年学时间在慢性生命维持方面的独特维度,呈现了一种生命尽头的现象学,这种尽头被技术手段拉长、推迟,并因透析治疗的理念和体验过程而变得模糊。