• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.3-33
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• 2014

Over the last forty years, the dominant perspective of social science on medicine has been the medicalization theory. It indicates the social process of expanding power of medical professionals by (re)defining the problems which were treated as non-medical phenomena(e.g. homosexuality, alcoholism, obesity, etc.) into "diseases" and thus the spheres of medical intervention. Meanwhile, rapid technoscientific changes in the medical field owing to the diffusion of biological sciences and information technologies since the mid-1980s and the accompanying emergence of new social arrangements such as bioeconomy and biological citizenship have led to the rise of a new social scientific perspective called the biomedicalization theory. This paper attempts to compare the two theories and assess their merits and demerits as a basic work to deepen the understandings of sociology and STS on contemporary medicine. And it also attempts to analyze their relative relevance through the case of mental disorder. The analysis on the case of mental disorder clearly shows that the medicalization in that area seems to have continuously proceeded since the early 19th centiry to the present. Furthermore, it also seems true that the five central processes of biomedicalization(except for risk surveillance technologies of mental disorder) have been observed and realized since the late 20th century. These results indicate that although medicalization has consistently proceeded, it has not been limited to the quantitative expansion of the medical field but been extended to the qualitative transformation asserted by the biomedicalization theory. Therefore, while the concept of medicalization is valid and significant even today, we can recognize that the concept of biomedicalization allow us to capture the new phenomena which cannot be properly and sufficiently captured by that of medicalization.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.117-157
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• 2012

This paper investigated the biomedical medicalization of "depression"which is growing fast in Korea in terms of the treatment mechanism. Depression has been regarded as a mental disease that occurs with mixing various causations because what was the cause of this disease was not clarified until a recent date. Thus, as depression treatment, the medicine and the psycho-socio therapy have been used. However, from 1990s, as the brain science was introduced in the western society, and the high-tech diagnostic equipment of the brain disease and new drugs for the mental disease were developed, depression was rapidly redefined as 'the brain nerve system illness'that is easy to be taken and is able to obtain the permanent relief with the regular care. Under the influence of the redefinition of depression and the new treatment of it, recently, 8% of depression patients per year emerge as the aggressive cure subjects in the Korean psychiatric circle. However, according to the Korean psychiatric circle's unofficial calculation, it is estimated that only 10% of depression patients are receiving the accurate treatment but over 80% of the patients are not. If so, what does this estimation mean? Based on this question, this paper critically investigated the biomedical medicalization of depression.

• Iberoamérica
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.69-94
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• 2011

Chile has been the first country in Latin America which has built a two-tiered health care system by partially privatizing the health insurance sector. Despite the intial decrease of health expenditure, more researches now show that health inequality within the Chilean health sector has been augmented with privatization of its insurance system. To explore such inequality, this article looks into the impact of privatization of health insurance on women's health. The author argues that privatization has intensified medicalization of women's body and, consequently, it worsened women's health in Chile. This article contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of market-oriented health care reform by linking it with medicalization process.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.61
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• pp.159-179
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• 2013

This study aims to consider the criteria and signification of 'aging' constructed in media in Korean society that has entered aging society. For the purpose, this study analyzed KBS the representative TV health programs. According to the result, designs the measurable indexes of aging to rank the casts. And it emphasizes to the casts that cannot reach a certain level the support from medical experts or advanced medical technology. With such characteristics of individual text, this paper found the ideological codes of the health programs. They contrast the elderly who have achieved successful aging from those that have not. They define the aged who have not practiced self-management or medical control to prevent aging properly as failure and also make fun of them. They draw aging that was not regarded as some kind of disease in the past into the area of medicine. Besides, the medicalization of aging regarded as an object for treatment may come to strengthen the control of medical experts and also individualize social issues.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.271-273
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• 2015

Quaternary prevention should be implemented to minimize harm to patients because the ultimate goal of medicine is to prevent disease and promote health. Primary care physicians have a major responsibility in quaternary prevention, and the establishment of clinical epidemiology as a distinct field of study would create a role charged with minimizing patient harm arising from over-medicalization.

• CELLMED
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.7.1-7.4
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• 2012

The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is increasing in Norway. A growing number of nurses choose to offer CAM, and the purpose of the study presented in this article was to examine the reasons for their choices. Fieldwork including interviews with 20 nurses offering CAM was conducted. The results showed that the nurses in general are not satisfied with the public health service. They had four main reasons for their choice to offer CAM: 1. A desire to perform holistic nursing. 2. A tendency to value self-realization. 3. A wish to experience meaning in their work and develop a stronger professional identity. 4. A freedom to mix care and cure. The results of this study are also discussed in view of medicalization.

• Journal of Legislation Research
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• no.44
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• pp.387-433
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• 2013

Understanding the concepts of health and medical practice are significant because they are the basis of health and medical policy and law. How legislators, policy makers, and the public perceive those concepts defines the direction of legislation and policy making. This study aims to show the changes of the concepts by reviewing the history of major Statutes relating to health and medicine. Alongside medicalization of human conditions and daily activities, the concepts of health and medical practice also expanded. On the other hand, as technologies of health and medicine have specialized and segmented, the large portion of public services of the past is now provided by the private sector. We argue that the actual laws and decisions by the judiciary should be responsive to social and scientific changes, which may cause the changes of the perceptions of health and medical practice. By doing so, they not only can have actual legal force but also even initiate a movement for establishing new medical policy or law.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.599-614
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• 2017

With the increasing media representation of aging as negative and abnormal, anti-aging products and discourses are spreading to younger generations. This paper analyzes the anti-aging discourse in a fashion magazine targeted towards women in their 20s. It quantitatively analyzes the historical development of the antiaging industry and discourses from 1994 to 2014 in the magazine "$C{\acute{e}}ci$". It also analyzes the patterns of signification associated with aging in the magazine through the use of critical discourse analysis. This paper identifies five major discourses -"segmentation of the definitions of youthful appearance", "scientific and medical discourse", "self-care discourse", "prevention of aging", and "social values of youthful appearances". The paper finds that the construction of anti-aging discourses towards women in their 20s is heavily influenced by the close link between the anti-aging industry and the fashion media. It also confirms the ideology of self-development though a rigorous appearance-management that is strongly imposed on Korean women and subsequently reproduced in an anti-aging discourse towards women in their 20s.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2012

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the meanings of 'Natural childbirth' from experiences of Korean women who gave birth to a baby in the midwifery using a feminist approach. Methods: This paper is a qualitative research study and applies a feminist epistemology and methodology to the experiences of women who gave birth in midwifery. The data were collected by individual in-depth interviews with eleven participants. Results: Two main themes emerged from the feminist content analyses and each main theme had three sub themes. A. transformation of control and knowledge on childbirth and the body 1) refusing coercive medicalization and building a new normality, 2) specific expectations about biological health and maternity rather than a return to nature, 3) the subject of pregnancy and childbirth, B. 'natural childbirth' practice as a new embodied discipline 1) helpers to support mothers, midwives, 2) helping the body to do 'natural childbirth', 3) from isolated labor to cooperative reproduction. Conclusion: These results indicate that women desired to practice being a subject, consultation with professionals, self-discipline and named actors except for women as 'other subjects' in childbirth.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2020

In unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) patients, we try to improve their symptoms such as hoarseness or aspiration by restoring nerve functions or medialization laryngoplasty (ML), etc. Until now, ML (thyroplasty and/or arytenoid adduction) is considered as gold standard of treatment for UVFP. However, if recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) is damaged and use of RLN is feasible during operation, laryngeal reinnervation (LR) would be a good option. Anastomosis with ansa cervicalis to RLN is most common reinnervation method. Delayed LR may be considered in young patients when the RLN denervation period is not long (less than 2 years) for the treatment of surgery-related UVFP. Injection laryngoplasty and laryngeal framework surgery showed great voice outcomes in UVFP. Combination therapy (neuromuscular pedicle innervation with ML) also showed good post-operative voice outcomes even in longer periods (over 2 years). In pediatric patients, LR would be considered as a good treatment option because all procedures need to general anesthesia.