The 21st century health system has been marked by rapid developments in medical technology, availability of treatments, and advancements in the field of medicine. These changes have tremendously contributed to better prevention, management, and control of chronic illnesses like heart disease, asthma, diabetes and arthritis. However, the reality of chronic illness is intertwined with continued dwindle in quality of life, of dependency, of medication and limits. In this condition of diminishing health, the patient starkly experiences the dichotomy between the mind and the body. As P1 shares, “My mind is ok, but my body is simply weak. It has its own ways.”
In this regard, the paper will be bridging the mind-body divide and explain the relation of the body, by ascertaining that the body of the patient that is suffering from chronic illness is communicating both to the person and the world that
1. The body of chronically ill person is a nexus of living meanings made manifest by the patients articulations of pain and health, of sufferings and joy.
2. The body as a subject is evincing humanity beyond cultural construction and linguistic formulation.
3. The relation between the chronically ill patient and the body is of intertwined subjectivity, of one human dignity and human strength. This is made manifest through the patient’s continued struggle for life despite awareness of dwindling quality of health and diminishing quality of life.
Chronic Illness: The Condition
Chronic diseases, unlike acute illnesses that are episodic and treatable with the hope of returning to normalcy, are a continuing multivariate process necessitating persistent management . In addition, the management is not limited only to care but to enable the p...
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...ience. Yet, what can be deduced is that it is there prior to our awareness of that which is there. It is both internal and external. The body on its own provide as the access with which the world is known. This connection of the body with the world is anchored on the reality that the body is there with and in the world. The experiences of the body is not something that you extract or signify, it is there simply because the body is there.
Works Cited
Holman, 2009
Murray et al., 2005
Ibid, p 1008.
Gastmans et al, 1998; Cronquest et al. 2004; Tuckett, 1999 & 2005; Patistea, 1999; van Hooft 1999; Covington 20
Ricoeur 1992, p 191)
(Boykin & Schoenhofer, 1990, p 150)
(Gastmans et al, 1998, p 46)
” (Gastmans et al 1998).
Naef, 2006, 49)
(van Hooft 1999, p 190)
(Gastmans et al 1998, Gastmans 1999).
(Schantz 2007, Gallagher 2007
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