What is in a name? Autonomic imbalance and medically unexplained symptoms in Taiwan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2249879 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jia-Shin Chen (0000-0002-8521-677X, Institute of Science, Technology and Society National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Taipei Taiwan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 881-894 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9566.13262 |
| OpenAlex | W3137266190 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 37 |
Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are persistent bodily symptoms without known pathology. An unofficial term has recently emerged in Taiwan to accommodate MUS: autonomic imbalance (AI). AI literally refers to disturbances of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that innervates vital organs. However, AI is variously conceptualised by different parties. This study intends to investigate what is in the name of AI. It draws on available databases and in-depth interviews with AI sufferers and Western and Chinese medicine physicians. Some physicians research ANS functions through heart rate variability measurements. Research findings show that physicians regard AI as a convenient term for clinical communication and a euphemistic substitute for MUS or even psychiatric diagnoses. It is not a 'real thing'. However, AI sufferers treat AI as a bona fide disease, only that it has not been officially classified. AI is therefore an unfaithful translation, or an uncontrolled equivocation, of MUS. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of treating AI as an equivocation. These implications include the limitations of the current diagnostic criteria, the necessity to rethink the dichotomy of mind and body, and the underlying realities exposed or masked by 'diagnosis
Autonomic function · Disease · Epistemology · Equivocation · Heart rate · Heart rate variability · Medical diagnosis · Pathology · Psychiatry · Term (time · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Neurology and Historical Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
Social Origins of Distress and Disease
Neither Donkey nor Horse
Situational Analysis
Neuro
Contested Boundaries
Heart rate variability
Encounters with Aging
Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture
Putting a Name to It
Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture
Encounters with AgingMythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America
Illness and Culture in Contemporary Japan
Are Somatoform Disorders Changing With Time? The Case of Neurasthenia in China
Culture and somatic experience
Depression in Japan
Neurasthenia as nosological dilemma
Neurasthenia and depression
Beyond the Sociology of Diagnosis
Medically unexplained symptoms and the disease label
How Did Chinese Medicine Become Experiential? The Political Epistemology of Jingyan
Reification and the consciousness of the patient
Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled Equivocation
Making sense of illness
Diagnosis and nosology in primary care
I just want permission to be ill
Patients with medically unexplained symptoms
Towards a sociology of diagnosis
The negotiation of the sick role
Embodied health movements
Illnesses you have to fight to get
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |