Abstract
With increasing longevity and the medicalization of the life course in countries with developed health and welfare systems, measurements have become more important for managing ageing bodies. This review article emphasizes the importance of the ‘meso-level’of social interaction, where people are involved with others in using numbers to deal with older bodies. It considers three kinds of measurement: the quantification of biological values for purposes of treatment; the assessment of functionality in order to determine the need for care services and training; and the use of measuring devices to track and manage health at home. Ethnographic methods are well suited for exploring the social uses of numbers and to the appreciation of diversity in those uses. They show that the overall trend towards increasing quantification takes different forms for different people and purposes. Because they abstract and objectify, numbers can facilitate reflection and communication. In practice, they may be interpreted differently by different actors. The review concludes with suggestions for further research on the uses of measurement for managing bodies and people in the later life course.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The trend is marked in relatively wealthy societies with well-developed health and welfare systems, and much less evident in poorer countries.
References
Andersen, J. H. & Whyte S. R. (2014). Measuring risk, managing values: health technology and subjectivity in Denmark. Anthropology & Medicine. DOI:10.1080/13648470.2014.907022.
Bowling, A. (1990). Associations with life satisfaction among very elderly people living in a deprived part of inner London. Social Science & Medicine, 31(9), 1003–1011.
Bowling, A. (2001). Measuring disease: a review of disease-specific quality of life measurement scales (2nd ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bowling, A. (2005a). Measuring health: a review of quality of life measures (3rd ed.). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Bowling, A. (2005b). Ageing well: quality of life in old age. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Canguilhem, G. (1989). The normal and the pathological. New York: Zone Books. 1966.
Cohen, L. (1998). No aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the bad family, and other modern things. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cole, T. R. (1992). The journey of life: a cultural history of aging in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conrad, P. (2007). The medicalization of society: on the transformation of human conditions into treatable disorders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Copelton, D. A. (2010). Output that counts: pedometers, sociability and the contested terrain of older adult fitness walking. Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(2), 304–318.
Danefer, D., & Daub, A. (2009). Extending the interrogation: life span, life course, and the constitution of human aging. Advances in Life Course Research, 14, 5–14.
Elder, G. H. (1994). Time, human agency, and social change: perspectives on the life course. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57(1), 4–15.
Estes, C. L., & Binney, E. A. (1989). The biomedicalization of aging: dangers and dilemmas. The Gerontologist, 29(5), 587–596.
Fox, S., & Duggan, M. (2012). Mobile Health 2012, Pew internet and American life project, 8 http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Mobile-Health.aspx
Greene, J. A. (2007). Prescribing by numbers: drugs and the definition of disease. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gubrium, J. F., & Lynott, R. J. (1987). Measurement and the interpretation of burden in the alzheimer’s disease experience. Journal of Aging Studies, 1(3), 265–285.
Gubrium, J. F., Rittman, M. R., Williams, C., Young, M. E., & Boylstein, C. A. (2003). Benchmarking as everyday functional assessment in stroke recovery. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 58B(4), S203–S211.
Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action (Vol. 1: Reason and the rationalization of society). Oxford, England: Polity Press.
Heron, A., & Chown, S. (1967). Age and function. Boston: Little and Brown.
Joyce, K., & Loe, M. (2010). A sociological approach to ageing, technology and health. Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(2), 171–180.
Katz, S. (1996). Disciplining old age: the formation of gerontological knowledge. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Katz, S. (2000). Busy bodies: activity, aging, and the management of everyday life. Journal of Aging Studies, 14(2), 135–152.
Katz, S. (2006). From chronology to functionality: critical reflections on the gerontology of the body. In J. Baars, D. Dannefer, & C. Phillipson (Eds.), Aging, globalization and inequality (pp. 123–137). Amityville NY: Baywood Press.
Katz, S., & Marshall, B. L. (2004). Is the functional ‘normal’? aging, sexuality and the bio-marking of successful living. History of the Human Sciences, 17(1), 53–75.
Kaufman, S. R. (1994). Old age, disease, and the discourse on risk: geriatric assessment in U.S. health care. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 8(4), 430–447.
Kaufman, S. R. (1997). Construction and practice of medical responsibility: dilemmas and narratives from geriatrics culture. Medicine and Psychiatry, 21, 1–26.
Kaufman, S. R. (2010). Making longevity in an aging society: linking ethical sensibility and medicare spending. Medical Anthropology, 28(4), 317–325.
Kaufman, S., Shim, J. K., & Russ, A. J. (2004). Revisiting the biomedicalization of aging: clinical trends and ethical challenges. The Gerontologist, 44(6), 731–738.
Leibing, A. (2009). Tense prescriptions? alzheimer medications and the anthropology of uncertainty. Transcultural Psychiatry, 46(1), 180–206.
Mol, A. (2008). The logic of care: health and the problem of patient choice. Milton Park, Oxford: Routledge.
Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Oxlund, B. (2012). Living by numbers: the dynamic interplay of measurement technologies, asymptomatic conditions and preventive medication among older adults in Denmark. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 37(3).
Rose, N. (2007). The politics of life itself: biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rose, N., & Novas, C. (2005). Biological citizenship. In A. Ong & S. J. Collier (Eds.), Global assemblages: technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems (pp. 439–463). Malden MA: Blackwell.
Rosenfeld, D., & Gallagher, E. B. (2002). The life course as an organizing principle and a socializing resource in modern medicine. Advances in Life Course Research, 7, 357–390.
Settersten, R. A., Jr., & Mayer, K. U. (1997). The measurement of age, age structuring, and the life course. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 233–261.
Shim, J. K., Russ, A. J., & Kaufman, S. R. (2006). Risk, life extension and the pursuit of medical possibility. Sociology of Health and Illness, 28(4), 479–502.
Von Faber, M., Wiel, A. B.-V. D., Exel, E. V., Gussekloo, J., Lagaay, A. M., Dongen, E. V., et al. (2001). Successful aging in the oldest old: who can be characterized as successfully aged? Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2694–2700. Dec10/24.
Wadmann, S. (2010). Ordination af blodtryksmedicin i dansk almen praksis: en fortælling om hvordan beslutningsusikkerhed reduceres og klinisk praksis formes. Masters thesis. University of Copenhagen.
Yaylagul, N. K., & Seedsman, T. (2012). Ageing: the common denominator? Population Ageing, 5, 257–279.
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge support by the Nordea Foundation to the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen. Many thanks to our colleagues in Programme 4 on Preventive Medication for inspiration and to Helene Risør for assistence at an earlier phase of this review work. We appreciate encouragement and constructive suggestions on an earlier version of this paper from Kenneth Howse and George Leeson.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Oxlund, B., Whyte, S.R. Measuring and Managing Bodies in the Later Life Course. Population Ageing 7, 217–230 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12062-014-9104-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12062-014-9104-9