The short story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1886), Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) provides key elements for a reflection on the meaning of long-term illness. Based on Tolstoy's short story the present paper analyzes the multiple dimensions of the process of illness. It starts with the argument that illness is not an a priori totality, but a trajectory of associations between the sick person, the doctor, family members, friends and caregivers. Acting, being affected, thinking and feeling all come together in the development of these associations. The analysis of the Ivan Ilyich's illness will consider the following points: (a) illness as otherness and incomprehensibility (growing unfamiliarity with one's body and the stages by which the body is gradually objectified); (b) illness as trajectories in an field of practices that involves the development of skills and the "education of attention"; (c) modes of health care as a set of techniques, objects and discourses that are put together or associated throughout trajectories concerned with the establishment of health. Long-term illness is therefore a mode of immersion of the sick person in networks of relations that come to be a part of her everyday life.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 February 2018.
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#7,722,737
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Outputs from Ciência & Saúde Coletiva
#524
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Outputs of similar age
#128,996
of 459,348 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Ciência & Saúde Coletiva
#20
of 33 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,815,917 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,184 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 3.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 69% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 459,348 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 33 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
