Technology and the conception of disease: Technology, disease and values

Abstract

Technology has changed health care radically the last two centuries. Not only has it altered the diagnostic and therapeutic potential, technology has formed our con­ceptions of disease. Technology establishes the entities that define disease (onto­logy), provides the signs signifying disease (semiology). Furthermore, it forms our knowledge (epistemology) as well as generating disease practices (pragmatics). By increasing the diagnostic sensitivity, more people are classified as diseased, and technology endows diseases with prestige. Technology draws attention to what can be measured and manipulated, and thereby directs our aims. Hence, tech­nology does not only influence disease through patients’ needs and industry’s interests, but by framing health care rationality and our concept of god and bad. This article investigates how technology forms disease and presents a framework for understanding how values are involved in the interplay between technology and disease. At the same time as technology has greatly contributed fighting suf­fering and death, it has become part of our conceptions of disease, suffering, and death – as well as of ourselves.