title: Emerging Therapeutic Enhancement Enabling Health Technologies and Their Discourses: What Is Discussed within the Health Domain?
abstract: So far, the very meaning of health and therefore, treatment and rehabilitation is benchmarked to the normal or species-typical body. We expect certain abilities in members of a species; we expect humans to walk but not to fly, but a bird we expect to fly. However, increasingly therapeutic interventions have the potential to give recipients beyond species-typical body related abilities (therapeutic enhancements, TE). We believe that the perfect storm of TE, the shift in ability expectations toward beyond species-typical body abilities, and the increasing desire of health consumers to shape the health system will increasingly influence various aspects of health care practice, policy, and scholarship. We employed qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate among others how human enhancement, neuro/cognitive enhancement, brain machine interfaces, and social robot discourses cover (a) healthcare, healthcare policy, and healthcare ethics, (b) disability and (c) health consumers and how visible various assessment fields are within Neuro/Cogno/ Human enhancement and within the BMI and social robotics discourse. We found that health care, as such, is little discussed, as are health care policy and ethics; that the term consumers (but not health consumers) is used; that technology, impact and needs assessment is absent; and that the imagery of disabled people is primarily a medical one. We submit that now, at this early stage, is the time to gain a good understanding of what drives the push for the enhancement agenda and enhancement-enabling devices, and the dynamics around acceptance and diffusion of therapeutic enhancements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Specialization in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. gwolbrin@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Gregor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wolbring
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Specialization in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. ldiep@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Lucy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Diep
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. sophya.yumakulov@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sophya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yumakulov
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. neball@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ball
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. vgsleopa@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Verlyn
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Leopatra
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N4N1, Canada. dyergens@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yergens
keywords: assessment; brain computer interface; brain machine interface; cognitive enhancement; disabled people; emerging therapeutics; health care ethics; health consumer; healthcare; healthcare ethics; healthcare policy; human enhancement; neuroenhancement; people with disabilities; social robotics; therapeutic enhancement