Narrat Inq Bioeth. 2020;10(1):49-61. doi: 10.1353/nib.2020.0026.
Signs and symbols may be used in attempts to direct attention to particular aspects of patient care and hence affect how the patient is seen. An ethnography within five hospitals across England and Wales explored how everyday technologies are enrolled on acute wards to drive attention to the existence, diagnosis, and needs of people living with dementia within their ageing population. We explore how signs and symbols as everyday "technologies of attention" both produce and maintain the invisibilities of people living with dementia and of the older population within those wards and bring about particular understandings of the classification of dementia. The use and reliance on signs and symbols to aid recognition of people living with dementia may inadvertently lead to misclassification and narrow attention onto particular aspects of bedside care and "symptoms," competing with a wider appreciation of the individual care needs of people living with dementia and restricting expertise of ward staff.
符号和标志可被用于引导人们关注患者护理的特定方面，从而影响人们对患者的看法。本项在英格兰和威尔士的五家医院进行的民族志研究，探索了日常技术如何在急症病房中被采用，以引起人们对老年人群中痴呆症患者的存在、诊断和需求的关注。我们探讨了符号和标志作为日常的“注意力技术”，如何既产生又维持痴呆症患者和这些病房中老年人群的不可见性，并对痴呆症的分类产生特定的理解。使用和依赖符号和标志来帮助识别痴呆症患者，可能会无意中导致错误分类，并将注意力狭隘地集中在床边护理和“症状”的特定方面，而忽视了对痴呆症患者个人护理需求的更广泛认识，并限制了病房工作人员的专业知识。
