Wizualne i sprawnościowe doświadczanie przez biorców przeszczepu kończyny górnej zrekonstruowanego ciała – studium socjomedyczne
Visual and Dexterity Experience of the Reconstructed Body by Upper Limb Transplant Recipients – A Sociomedical Study

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to present the way in which hand transplant recipients experience their reconstructed bodies in the context of their work on recreation of corporeal unity in it. The empirical basis of the paper is the author’s sociomedical research study of a group of 6 hand transplant recipients who underwent the transplantation procedure in Poland in the years 2006 – 2014. The main question which the study sought to answer was how the upper limb transplant recipients experience their reconstructed body in terms of visual impression and the transplanted limb dexterity. The scope of the study comprised: 1) experience of the reconstructed body as a material being; 2) experience of the reconstructed body in relation to the recipient’s “ego”; 3) experience of the reconstructed body in relation to objects and people. The research material was gathered using the grounded theory methodology. The collected empirical material comes from 33 in-depth interviews (IDI) conducted in the aforesaid group of transplant recipients. The analysis of the empirical material showed that the most important problem for the research subjects in the experience of their own corporeality was the adjustment to physical changes in their body resulting from the limb transplantation. This process determines the recipient’s distancing of his/her identity from his/her body.

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