The dying patient: taboo, controversy and missing terms of reference for designers-an architectural perspective.
Med Humanit
; 48(1): e2-e9, 2022 Mar.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1027146
ABSTRACT
Contemporary society has grown seemingly detached from the realities of growing old and subsequently, dying. A consequence, perhaps, of death becoming increasingly overmedicalised, nearly one in two UK nationals die institutional deaths. In this article we, two architectural scholars engaged in teaching, research and practice and a nurse and healthcare scholar with a focus on end-of-life care and peoples' experiences, wish to draw attention to a controversy resulting from a paucity in current literature on the terms of reference of the dying 'patient' as we navigate the future implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. This contributes to a relative lack of touchstones for architects to refer to when designing person-centred palliative care environments. Unlike common building types, architects are extremely unlikely to have lived experience of palliative care environments as patients; and therefore, require the help of healthcare professionals to imagine and empathise with the requirements of a person dying away from home. This paper includes a review of ageing and dying literature to understand, and distil from an architectural perspective, who, design professionals, are designing for and to remember the nuanced characteristics of those we hold a duty of care toward. We ask readers to heed the importance of accurate terms of reference, especially when commissioning and/or designing environments of palliative care. Furthermore, we put forward an appeal for interdisciplinary collaboration to develop a framework for codesigning positive experiences of person-centred care and environments at the end of life.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Terminal Care
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Qualitative research
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Med Humanit
Journal subject:
Ethics
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Medhum-2020-011969
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS