Abstract

THE CASE OF MOBILE‐ HEALTH: HEALTH SELF‐MANAGEMENT BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND ETERONOMY This paper analyses the change in medical practice and, in wider terms, in health‐care system, due to the use of mobile health. It helps create patient’s autonomy because it provides technological tools to develop self‐care in every moment of life; but, in this way, it encroaches the patient’s life, producing a strong medical addiction. In biopolitics background, in particular connection with Michel Foucault, this paper shows how the use of mobile communication devices in health care could produce an increment of medicalization of life. Furthermore, perpetual attendance of medicine in the patient’s life generates a new relevance of health, becoming increasingly blurred wellness’s ideal.