Meanings and Multiplicity: Assessing early diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

This thesis studies, from a science and technology studies perspective, what responsible innovation for early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease would entail. To understand the social and cultural implications of early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease the multiple meanings of early diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease are traced and analysed in a number of settings. The study focusses on how co-existence of these meanings in particular settings – Alzheimer cafes, HTA committees, newspaper articles and funding schemes for Alzheimer research - depends on what is at stake in these settings. The thesis also argues that the interplay and articulations of multiple meanings can be considered as technology assessments ‘in the wild’. Reflections on the notion of responsible innovation in this context leads to an approach summarized as ‘the benefit of the doubt’ including an urge for sensitivity and awareness of the fringes, the need for balancing acts, and humility.