Quality of Life Measurement
Earlier today, I was going through some of the papers by Dr Latvia Pheiffer from the University of Zurich.
A really fascinating collection of works on caregiver bias and apathy. And while it provides evidence of the influences and interactions between caregivers and patients, it also helped me clarify the conundrum I've had over quality of life measurements. (Cont)
The first problem, of course, is that there isn't a single, universal definition. It's altered to meet the needs of each situation. And when that happens, are we really measuring quality of life? Or something else?
We struggle even to assess our own quality of life. Is it perceived inequality? Unachieved dreams? We as humans overestimate the impact of future events, and constantly rewrite history to convince ourselves that we made the right choice. Or that our history was better than it seemed the first time around—the wrongly convicted say it was the best thing that ever happened to them, losing a limb made another a better person, another would relive a violent situation if given the chance to do it all over because it made them who they are.
Money only makes us happy to a point. And if we lose our sense of identity or passion, we eventually find some other reason to enjoy life. We ease the loss by saying that we really didn't want that anyway. It wasn't so great.
Work, school, marriage... Everything we do is to give ourselves a better life.
So the question is this: is quality the way things are?
Or "quality of life" something a bit more intangible? Is it the desire and drive to achieve—the absence of apathy?
