Expressing health experience through embodied language.
OBJECTIVE
To describe embodied language for Japanese elders who suffered a stroke or cardiac disease within the previous year. Embodied language is the overlap of feeling and temporal word use with blood pressure during descriptions of health experience.


METHODS
Exploratory.


METHODS
Blood pressure and word use were recorded simultaneously when 17 cardiac and 20 stroke participants described their health experiences for 4 minutes. Blood pressure was measured using a tonometric monitor and word use was measured using linguistic analysis software. Descriptive and nonparametric statistics were used.


RESULTS
Participants with strokes retained higher blood pressure after talking than did cardiac participants. The two groups showed contrasting relationships between word use and blood pressure, particularly for temporal words.


CONCLUSIONS
This collaborative research between Japanese and American colleagues was a step toward deciphering shared values, which are important to understanding health for people who have lived through life-changing illness events.
Liehr
Patricia
P
School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1100 Holcombe Blvd: 5.518H, Houston, TX 77030, USA. pliehr@son1.nur.uth.tmc.edu
Takahashi
Ryutaro
R
Nishimura
Chie
C
Frazier
Lorraine
L
Kuwajima
Iwao
I
Pennebaker
James W
JW
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013060:Speech; D020521:Stroke / Q000523:psychology*