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KMID : 0379220070270010121
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Journal of Korea Gerontological Society
2007 Volume.27 No. 1 p.121 ~ p.136
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The Cultural Constitution of Medical Knowledge on Dementia: In the Case of the Families of Dementia Patients at the Cheongdo Dementia Sanatorium
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Park Song-Yong
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Abstract
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This study is a medical anthropological attempt at exploring how the medical knowledge of families nursing dementia patients at the Cheongdo Dementia Sanatorium is constituted. First, the families coat nomang either with an idea of dementia or substitute dementia for nomang. Connecting folk knowledge with modern medical knowledge, they use for treatment two kinds of knowledge not directly in opposition but eclectically or selectively to reduce uncertainties of recovery from dementia. Their medical knowledge is nothing but a bricolage consisting of different medical knowledge. Second, an important criterion which key informants use for the classification of the premonition of dementia is how dementia patients behave. In other words, the informants rely on a folk diagnosis; an observation on the behaviour of the patient. Prior to turning to a diagnosis of Western medicine, at first they use either their personal intuitive experiences or well-known stereotyped experiential knowledge. Third, the causes of dementia include neuro-physiological factors as well as socio-cultural ones. My informants believe that a woman’s married life in the home of her husband’s parents, husband’s philandering, or a traffic accident can bring about dementia as well. In fact, dementia often comes from the disruption of a balanced mind or a state of deeply suppressed emotion. Fourth, a category of subordinated diseases to dementia includes that of psycho-physiology as well as physio-psychology.
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KEYWORD
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folk knowledge, modern medical knowledge, uncertainties of recovery, bricolage, folk diagnosis, socio-cultural factors, balanced mind, body and mind, psycho-physiology, physio-psychology
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