ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2014
A diagnostic illusory? The case of distinguishing between "vegetative" and "minimally conscious" states.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Implicit Bias and Microaggressions in the Care of People With Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness: Bridging Medicine, Disability Studies, and Family Advocacy.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Article
- Perspectives on consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness from brain injury: group concept mapping study across clinic, research, and families.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- The social representations of diagnosing Lyme disease.PloS one · 2023Article
- Neuroethics across the Disorders of Consciousness Care Continuum.Seminars in neurology · 2022Review
- Not 'putting a name to it': Managing uncertainty in the diagnosis of childhood obesity.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
- Searching for diagnostic certainty, governing risk: Patients' ambivalent experiences of medical testing.Sociology of health & illness · 2022Article
- Dying too soon or living too long? Withdrawing treatment from patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness after Re Y.BMC medical ethics · 2019Article
- Consciousness and Personhood in Medical Care.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2018Article
- When 'Sanctity of Life' and 'Self-Determination' clash: Briggs versus Briggs [2016] EWCOP 53 - implications for policy and practice.Journal of medical ethics · 2017Article
- Causes and consequences of delays in treatment-withdrawal from PVS patients: a case study ofJournal of medical ethics · 2017Article
- Physiotherapy for vegetative and minimally conscious state patients: family perceptions and experiences.Disability and rehabilitation · 2016Article
- Anonymising interview data: challenges and compromise in practice.Qualitative research : QR · 2015Article
- Neuroscientific and neuroanthropological perspectives in music therapy research and practice with patients with disorders of consciousness.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2015Article
- Questioning the dichotomy between vegetative state and minimally conscious state: a review of the statistical evidence.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Throughout affluent societies there are growing numbers of people who survive severe brain injuries only to be left with long-term chronic disorders of consciousness. This patient group who exist betwixt and between life and death are variously diagnosed as in 'comatose', 'vegetative', and, more recently, 'minimally conscious' states. Drawing on a nascent body of sociological work in this field and developments in the sociology of diagnosis in concert with Bauman's thesis of 'ambivalence' and Turner's work on 'liminality', this article proposes a concept we label as diagnostic illusory in order to capture the ambiguities, nuanced complexities and tensions that the biomedical imperative to name and classify these patients give rise to. Our concept emerged through a reading of debates within medical journals alongside an analysis of qualitative data generated by way of a study of accounts of those close to patients: primarily relatives (N = 51); neurologists (N = 4); lawyers (N = 2); and others (N = 5) involved in their health care in the UK.
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