“Is There Anyone in There?”: Caregivers and Professionals’ Mutual Positioning to Take Care of Vegetative State Patients

Regulating liminality: Making sense of the vegetative state and defining the limits of end‐of‐life action

“…These representational contents resonate with the ones found in the Italian press (Zulato et al, 2021), where the vegetative state patient was differently represented as aware, unaware, or possibly aware, and distinctive positions on end-of-life were reported -for example, supporting or opposing treatment withdrawal. Moreover, as already demonstrated in the literature involving caregivers and health professionals (Holland et al, 2014;Kuehlmeyer et al, 2012;Zulato et al, 2022), these contents address different ontological and ethical dilemmas, such as what is the nature of the vegetative state and whether to withdraw treatment.…”

“…Conversely, by anchoring the vegetative state to ‘non‐life’, LW worked to de‐personify them. Both re‐personification and de‐personification had been described in the literature involving caregivers and health practitioners and were identified as being differently functional to signify care practices (Bird‐David & Israeli, 2010; Zulato et al, 2022). However, the dialogical dynamic of how they are constructed was not discussed.…”

“…Second, they might re‐signify the paradox through new and more complex representations, making a pattern shift (Greco & Stenner, 2017). For example, caregivers and professionals can re‐present the vegetative state patient as possibly and sporadically aware, thus as alive in a singular way (Zulato et al, 2022).…”

Who am I when I don't know who I am? The problem of personal identity in infants and elderly with cognitive disabilities

“…The term “person” is admittedly a complex one, but we can give a preliminary definition of “person” by opposing it to impersonal objects and things, and also by distinguishing it from the mere human body, in the sense that to be a person implies being immersed in human relations founded in human capacities ‐traditionally considering rationality as a key element (Locke, 1690). Other central features that have been used to define persons are awareness (Zulato et al., 2022), first‐person perspective (Baker, 2005), or attributes such as emotionality or empathy (Honigsbaum, 2013). However, as it will be discussed later, these ontological approach does not seem to exhaust our comprehension of what or who a person is.…”