The Expert Patient in the Digital Age: Between Myth and Reality

Abstract

This chapter helps the readers to understand the emergence of expert patients in the digital age, first through a literature review and then through a survey of several patients. The healthcare system then becomes more patient-centered than diseasecentered, leading to the end of a form of medical paternalism in favor of a patient/healthcare professional partnership. Professionals taught patients techniques to promote their empowerment and reduce their dependence on the biomedical institution. The chapter explores the slow professionalization process of the patient, since the transition from invalid to patient, and then with the emergence of the expert patient. With the professionalization of the patient status, a state becomes a job. This evolution accompanies or illustrates the changes in the caregiver–patient relationship. The practice of life narratives or storytelling develops a link with the processes of resilience. The patient knowledge of associations enables the design of specialized communication supports on different themes.