Strategies for Effective Communication with Older Adults

Using effective communication. When caring for older adults can help inform assessments, plan care, develop the nurse, patient relationship and even improve health outcomes.

As the nurse, you'll consider barriers to communication and implement strategies to promote effective communication for individuals and groups of older adults.

All right, now, there are certain barriers to effective communication with older adults to keep in mind. One barrier is ageism which involves stereotyping and discriminating against individuals based on their age.

Ageism can lead to poor health outcomes like cognitive and functional decline. Elders speak is a type of ageism which refers to condescending speech patterns used when communicating with older adults.

Common instances of elders speak include using pet names such as honey or sweetie substituting collective pronouns such as we like saying we are going to eat dinner now and speaking to the patient's family or caregiver rather than the patient as the nurse.

You can implement strategies to promote effective communication with your older adult patient. These include using open ended questions, allowing for additional response time and encouraging storytelling, open ended questions like what do you know about your family history can help you gather information but may cause some patients to verbalize what they assume you want to hear rather than how they truly want to answer.

So when asking open ended questions, remember to seek validation of what you hear. So you can clearly understand what your patient is telling you.

Now, keep in mind that word retrieval can slow as individuals age, you can provide your patient with the opportunity to answer your questions fully by practicing patients speaking slower to allow time for them to process what's being said and giving them additional time to respond.

Lastly, storytelling can allow your patient the opportunity to share their memories and life experiences. An important piece of storytelling is reminiscing when an individual recalls, key experiences and transitions of their past, older adults may reminisce verbally or through other mechanisms like journaling or digital storytelling.

Reminiscing is enjoyable for older adults and it can promote socialization, reduce depression and stimulate cognition to encourage reminiscing.

You can practice active listening limit interruptions, provide reassurance and use props like images or songs to stimulate memories and discussion, you can even ask questions like what is your most memorable life accomplishment or what are your favorite childhood memories?

Now, older adults with cognitive impairment can also benefit from storytelling and reminiscing with modifications as needed.

For instance, in patients with dementia, you can focus on the experience of sharing memories rather than recalling specific dates or times.

So for example, instead of asking your patient to tell you what year they were married. You might ask them to discuss their wedding day.

You can also implement the time slips program, which is an evidence based program where older adults view a picture and develop a story about it.

This can help to increase verbal skills, promote socialization, improve mood and even minimize confusion. As you interact with older adults with cognitive impairment.

Be sure to take an active approach to engaging them and avoid pressuring them to answer questions. Lastly, you might need to communicate with groups of older adult patients like in an adult day program, skilled nursing facility or an educational class.

Depending on the environment, you'll guide communication based on shared goals. For example, when working with a group of older adult patients with heart failure, you may focus on self care, education and motivation.

Whereas a support group consisting of patients with cognitive impairment may benefit from memory sharing or encouraging emotional expression.

It's also important to assess members of the group for barriers to participation and plan accordingly. For example, a patient with hearing loss may need to sit closer to you or have extra time allocated for responses.

Or a patient with memory loss may need routine reminders of the meeting date and time. You can further promote participation and collaboration by asking members to share ideas or make suggestions for group discussion.

Also be sure to prepare for potential illnesses and absence of members as well as formulate a clear plan to recognize members who may have died.

All right. As a quick recap, as the nurse, you'll consider barriers to communication and implement strategies to promote effective communication for individuals and groups of older adults.

You can implement strategies such as using open ended questions, allowing for additional response time and encouraging storytelling and reminiscing for older adults with impaired cognition.

You can focus on the experience of sharing memories and when working with a group of older adults, you can guide communication based on shared goals while tailoring the discussion to enhance participation.