1/4. injections and the fear of death: an essay on the limits of biomedicine among the Dagomba of northern ghana.This article offers a cultural ("indigenous") explanation of why people in their quest for therapy sometimes reject biomedicine. The argument is that in the current debate over the power of biomedicine, there is a lack of scrutiny of its "failures", i.e. of why people occasionally refuse to accept the offers of biomedicine and its most powerful therapy, injection-therapy. After introducing the problem, the relevant literature and the methods used, the article proceeds by first using historical material regarding vaccination campaigns and the treatment of endemic diseases in ghana and comparative data from elsewhere in africa to show that people may be ambivalent and have a mixed view of the power of biomedicine. In the context of their experiences, people (possibly, in particular, older ones) have come to know both the (early) failures as well as the successes of injection-therapy. Turning to the ethnographic present (1990-1997) the record of Dagomba notions of health and illness as well as two cases are analyzed to define this ambiguity also among younger members of Dagomba culture. Thus, the article oscillates between ethnography and history to define people's ambivalence and the conflict between biomedicine and local understandings.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = fear (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/4. death in the ICU: does the patient predict his own demise?Critically ill patients who fear impending death may die suddenly. We studied prospectively the incidence of death in critically ill surgical patients who articulated the fear that they were about to die. Physiologic, environmental, and behavioral correlates which might influence perceptions of impending death were examined for both the study group and age- and diagnosis-matched control patients. Thirteen (2%) of 643 patients expressed the conviction that they were about to die. Five (38%) of 13 subjects and four (29%) of 13 controls died, an insignificant difference. The overall death rate in the ICU during the study period was 10%. We conclude that patients expressing fear of imminent death were no more likely to die than matched controls, but that they were among the most severely ill conscious patients in the ICU.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.75keywords = fear (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/4. "Doom anxiety" and delirium in lidocaine toxicity.Of 15 patients with psychiatric reactions to lidocaine, 12 (80%) had mood changes, 11 (73%) had "doom anxiety," eight (53%) had overt confusional states, and six (40%) had hallucinations and delusions. The authors contend that morbid fears of impending doom or the belief that death has occurred are specific manifestations of lidocaine toxicity and may be mistakenly attributed to "understandable" fears about death during the course of recovery from a myocardial infarction on the coronary care unit.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.5keywords = fear (Clic here for more details about this article) |
4/4. The theme of death in complex partial seizures.The theme of death highlighted the depersonalization phenomena of four patients with complex partial seizures. These patients became preoccupied with death in association with psychomotor seizures, visual hallucinations, and altered perception of time and reality. The episodic sense of being dead or of having an appointment with death is a clue to the diagnosis of recurrent complex partial seizures even without overt motor stigmata of seizures. The syndrome differs from fear of death, steroid psychosis, the "near death syndrome," and Cotard's syndrome. Adjustment of antiseizure medication is an important therapeutic maneuver.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.25keywords = fear (Clic here for more details about this article) |