La personne âgée « fragile »

This article seeks to understand the scientific and medical construction of the notion of “frailty” of old persons. For this purpose, it relies on the analysis of a body of medical literature, conducted between July and August 2016, and field data of an exploratory survey of health professionals wor...

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Main Author: Alfonsina Faya-Robles
Format: Article
Language:fra
Published: Association Anthropologie Médicale Appliquée au Développement et à la Santé
Series:Anthropologie & Santé
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/anthropologiesante/4341
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author Alfonsina Faya-Robles
author_facet Alfonsina Faya-Robles
author_sort Alfonsina Faya-Robles
collection DOAJ
description This article seeks to understand the scientific and medical construction of the notion of “frailty” of old persons. For this purpose, it relies on the analysis of a body of medical literature, conducted between July and August 2016, and field data of an exploratory survey of health professionals working around frailty. First, the text proposes a sociohistorical contextualization in order to understand the emergence of the category of “frailty” in the field of geriatrics and French public health. Then, we examine the question of the inclusion of the category of “frailty” in a broader process of medicalization of aging. The data nevertheless reveals nuances in the use of the category of “frailty”, showing that two distinct processes can be identified: one, which could called healthicization, and a second, triggering the biomedicalization of old age. These two processes imply not only different scientific postures but also actors and particular care for frailty.
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spelling doaj.art-8e33abe1198340f6bd41cad3fdff6aed2024-02-14T14:40:23ZfraAssociation Anthropologie Médicale Appliquée au Développement et à la SantéAnthropologie & Santé2111-50281710.4000/anthropologiesante.4341La personne âgée « fragile »Alfonsina Faya-RoblesThis article seeks to understand the scientific and medical construction of the notion of “frailty” of old persons. For this purpose, it relies on the analysis of a body of medical literature, conducted between July and August 2016, and field data of an exploratory survey of health professionals working around frailty. First, the text proposes a sociohistorical contextualization in order to understand the emergence of the category of “frailty” in the field of geriatrics and French public health. Then, we examine the question of the inclusion of the category of “frailty” in a broader process of medicalization of aging. The data nevertheless reveals nuances in the use of the category of “frailty”, showing that two distinct processes can be identified: one, which could called healthicization, and a second, triggering the biomedicalization of old age. These two processes imply not only different scientific postures but also actors and particular care for frailty.https://journals.openedition.org/anthropologiesante/4341categorizationhealthicizationfrailtyagingbiomedicalization
spellingShingle Alfonsina Faya-Robles
La personne âgée « fragile »
Anthropologie & Santé
categorization
healthicization
frailty
aging
biomedicalization
title La personne âgée « fragile »
title_full La personne âgée « fragile »
title_fullStr La personne âgée « fragile »
title_full_unstemmed La personne âgée « fragile »
title_short La personne âgée « fragile »
title_sort la personne agee fragile
topic categorization
healthicization
frailty
aging
biomedicalization
url https://journals.openedition.org/anthropologiesante/4341
work_keys_str_mv AT alfonsinafayarobles lapersonneageefragile