Effective communication is essential when dealing with older adults who require solicit assistance with daily activities. Older adults need to communicate with health care professionals, caregivers, families, friends, and other significant people through face to face and also over the Internet. Due to their old age, older people face several challenges and barriers to communication, which affect their verbal and nonverbal communication.
The trouble with hearing is a common barrier experienced by the majority of young people, and it affects communication. Hearing problem make it challenging to hold verbal communication with the person. Old age is associated with the speaking problem, especially where the person has a hearing challenge. Health care providers find it challenging to understand elders who are unable to enunciate, which might affect the provision of quality care ( Norouzinia et al., 2016) . Speaking problems might also arise from ill-fitting dentures or the effect of a stroke. Comprehension of conversations is another challenge faced when communicating with older adults. The difficulty of comprehension is caused by declining memory. Most people who have this challenge tend to withdraw from communication and become defensive by shutting down the conversation. Lastly, declining sight or vision hinders non-verbal communication with an older person.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Several therapeutic communication techniques are applied to aid in communication and overcome the barriers. Advancement in technology has made it easy to overcome some of the obstacles like hearing and vision. Older adults are encouraged to wear hearing devices and prescribed glasses during communication to overcome the barrier of hearing and vision (Lima et al., 2012). Before engaging the person in conversation, the physician or health care provider needs to ensure the hearing aids and glasses are well fixed. The use of medical memory through visual assistance has proven to be effective in overcoming communication barriers since 90% of information transmitted in the brain is visual. Through the use of visual prompt during every visit, the health care provider can improve compliance and comprehension of the patient leading to a better health outcome. Other therapeutic communication techniques apply when communicating with the elderly include the use of easy-to-understand language and taking time to listen and understand the patient. According to Lima et al. (2012), nurses need to use precise language, concise, and accurate free from professional jargon. The application of these techniques will help in overcoming the barriers leading to a better health care outcome.
References
Lima, J. T. D. S., Oliveira, D. S. T. D., Costa, T. F. D., Freitas, F. F. Q., Alves, S. R. P., & Costa, K. N. D. F. M. (2012). Therapeutic and nontherapeutic communication between nurses and hospitalized elderly citizens. Journal of Nursing UFPE on line [JNUOL/DOI: 10.5205/01012007] , 6 (7), 1566-1575.
Norouzinia, R., Aghabarari, M., Shiri, M., Karimi, M., & Samami, E. (2016). Communication barriers perceived by nurses and patients. Global journal of health science , 8 (6), 65.
