Does DBS Alienate Identity or Does It Simply Fail to Restore Identity Already Eroded by Illness?

摘要

Qualitative studies on new treatments give us important insights into how patients experience a treatment, and how the treatment either improves or disrupts their lives. Gilbert and colleagues’ study (Gilbert et al. 2017) is a valuable contribution to the phenomenological literature on how deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) can influence people’s self-concept. However, there is insufficient detail about the lives of their respondents in this fascinating study. This context is needed to better interpret the authors’ results, and will clarify some of the methodological and theoretical issues they outline.