There's no point in having the best feelings if you can't communicate them. Today, the means of communication have changed, and the differences between the generations sometimes complicate exchanges. It is important to adapt to their specificities to communicate better with the elderly people around us. Adapt to the needs of the elderly without infantilizing communication to provide senior care services.
The differences in mentality and lifestyle between the generations and the physical or cognitive disorders often associated with aging sometimes complicate exchanges within the same family or between professional caregivers and elderly patients. It is necessary to remember some characteristics of this exchange so beneficial for their well-being and against isolation. To communicate effectively, we must adapt the message and deliver senior care services. You don't talk to a child like a work colleague. When it comes to communicating with older people, many of us tend to treat them like children or incapable, more often than not unconsciously.
It is important not to communicate with the elderly in a way that can be interpreted as condescension, even if we intend to facilitate the exchange by using simpler words or a different tone. In general, older adults retain their vocabulary and improve it through reading or watching television documentaries. Healthy elderly people have no more difficulty understanding complicated words. There is, therefore need to over-simplify the conversation. In order to communicate with the elderly, it is not essential to speak aloud systematically, as if all the elderly were deaf.
Take Into Account The Specificities Of Communicating With The Elderly
Senior care services require communicating with the elderly while ignoring their difficulties. Aging brings its share of changes, and it is important to know the difficulties or the troubles of the elderly during COVID-19. Communicating with older people with hearing impairments does require speaking a little louder (without shouting). It is important to speak clearly: some of us speak too fast, while others mumble when uncomfortable.
It is recommended to avoid noisy environments: background noise affects older people even more than young adults. So take this into account while providing senior care services. Keep eye contact with the other person: when someone hears less well, they tend to read lips. Suppose the other person has a poor working memory. In that case, it will be useful to break your sentences into smaller units when you need to convey important or complex information to them. Avoid subordinates that make the sentence heavy; even an adult without particular difficulty can forget the beginning of the sentence if you are talking about medical treatment and using lengthy sentences.
Communicating with older people with dementia is often more complicated, but there are strategies. It is important not to infantilize the conversation, the elderly suffering from a neurological disease deserve the same respect as others.
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