Science and technology enabled changes in ability expectations: Challenges for successful aging of people with and without so called impairments

Abstract

This presentation relates to the symposium entitled ‘Diverse National Policies and Programs Supporting Inclusiveness and Healthy Living’ organized by Dr. Jill Le Clair. Emerging and envisioned sciences and technologies enable changes in the abilities people cherish and vice versa. Advances in science and technology and the changing landscape of ability expectations increasingly enable two health related paradigm shifts. One is the move away from species-typical as the framework of reference of ‘being healthy’ towards a framework of ‘health’ which incorporates, condones, and even expects the modification of the human body beyond species- typical boundaries as one prerequisite of being ‘healthy’. The other is the move towards patient-driven health care consumer models which includes the move towards a ‘quantified self’ (where people diagnose themselves), user generated data consumer personalized medicine, health social networks and ‘participatory medicine ‘in which networked patients shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health?[1]. These two paradigm shifts influence severely our vision of how we should age, aging and the elderly. The term ableism was originally developed by the disabled people rights movement and the academic field of disability studies to question the favouritism for species-typical and discrimination against as sub species-typical labelled body abilities and medicalization of such as sub species-typical labelled bodies.