SSW 101 Research Assignment

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by roshelle whyte1 view·Updated Feb 18, 2022
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  1. Okay, so my name is Rochelle. I am
  2. doing a presentation on barriers to communication.
  3. I
  4. am an expert in this
  5. subject or topic as I have been
  6. living with my elderly grandmother since I was
  7. about 16
  8. and I have found with elderly people, it is extremely difficult to communicate.
  9. My grandma who is 96 years old and completely blind and has some hearing loss
  10. or hearing loss issues.
  11. Um
  12. it's extremely hard to communicate with her at times because
  13. she can't see and she also can't hear. So when we're talking to her, it sort of becomes
  14. a problem because we have to
  15. speak very loudly and very close
  16. and sometimes
  17. even just when we do that, we have to speak very slowly, so she understands
  18. um as we get older,
  19. our patients isn't the greatest because we
  20. expect older adults to just understand us,
  21. but
  22. My grandma has been blind for about 20 years,
  23. so all of her memories are before losing her sight
  24. and trying to explain
  25. new age things to her
  26. is she is totally lost.
  27. So I've decided to do this project on her because
  28. I understand the barriers and we've figured out
  29. my family collectively has figured out ways to
  30. communicate with her better
  31. and
  32. teacher about things like
  33. the internet.
  34. She never really used the internet as when
  35. the internet started to become more popular,
  36. her sight started going.
  37. So I have um
  38. sorry,
  39. I have found that um not just with my grandmother, but seniors in general um
  40. things
  41. illnesses can cause them to
  42. have a hard time communicating, such as strokes. Um
  43. strokes can leave people sometimes paralyzed,
  44. not completely, but sometimes paralyzed on one side of their body,
  45. so their brain is working sometimes,
  46. but
  47. everything else is having a hard time catching up. Um also cancer, brain tumors.
  48. Um people that have Parkinson's sometimes it's very hard to control
  49. uh what their brain does
  50. and um I've also had family members that have Alzheimer's, and I've seen how it
  51. is quickly deteriorating
  52. their brains and
  53. making it very hard for them to even recognize
  54. us as family who we've known our whole lives.
  55. Uh
  56. So I've noticed um
  57. with
  58. the thing that I've found is um
  59. health care aides
  60. or healthcare professionals that have come to help my grandma,
  61. they have this thing where they talked to her
  62. as if she's a child and
  63. she does tend to get annoyed by it, but I understand that
  64. there are
  65. things that
  66. I guess as a health care
  67. worker,
  68. they teach you in school or they teach you how to interact with somebody
  69. in
  70. my grandma's
  71. um
  72. issues with, with my grandma's issues,
  73. but I feel like that is more for somebody who has Alzheimer's and has no memory of
  74. what is even going on or dementia because
  75. it's like literally watching somebody go from an adult from an adult
  76. to a baby because they can't do much for themselves anymore.
  77. Okay,
  78. so I've learned to be very mindful
  79. over the years,
  80. it's been a hard time because
  81. sometimes it gets frustrating as we have to be yelling
  82. just to get our points across
  83. and
  84. I found doing this research,
  85. um,
  86. sometimes people will under accommodate with elders where
  87. the
  88. don't know how to communicate with somebody who
  89. is elderly because as I said before,
  90. they just expect people who are adults to just know what's going on,
  91. but
  92. your body slows down, your brain slows down, your movement slows down,
  93. your mobility is just not the same as somebody who was like in there,
  94. Even in their 50s to 60s,
  95. sometimes
  96. it's just not the same and, and people will
  97. get frustrated and
  98. treat
  99. older adults
  100. with a lot of neglect and abuse
  101. because they don't understand that
  102. things are changing.
  103. Um, there's also another thing where um,
  104. another barrier that I found where people are over accommodating
  105. and um I found that there's this um way that people talk,
  106. it's called elder speak as I was addressing before where
  107. they speak to older adults as if they were Children
  108. and some people do complain about it because they
  109. are very well aware of what's going on around them
  110. and they need to be mindful
  111. of
  112. getting upset at the healthcare workers because
  113. really they're just doing their jobs,
  114. but also the health care worker needs to understand
  115. that not everybody needs to be treated the same
  116. and
  117. everything needs to be done, but in a case by case basis I guess.
  118. So some solutions that I found
  119. um
  120. when we take my grandmother to the
  121. doctor or just when I go to the doctors myself and I see
  122. older adults,
  123. I noticed that the doctors will spend a little bit
  124. more time than what they would do for somebody my age
  125. because they see that
  126. older adults, they, sometimes it's really just,
  127. they want to get their point across and sometimes their, their thoughts
  128. can be,
  129. it can take a little bit of time
  130. to get those thoughts together of what their issues
  131. are and sometimes people just want the company.
  132. So
  133. going to the doctors and talking to the doctor is like talking to,
  134. it's just getting that company
  135. also listening carefully
  136. and avoid being distracted because
  137. with elder adults,
  138. sometimes they'll talk and they'll forget what they're
  139. saying and if you're not really paying attention,
  140. you'll completely miss what they were talking about.
  141. And um, so also sticking to a topic,
  142. one topic at a time and speaking slowly and clearly
  143. is another solution as well.
  144. Also with older adults,
  145. um,
  146. we have to all collect like as a family, we all collectively check on my grandmother,
  147. um check on my grandmother's niece who has Alzheimer's
  148. because people can go missing last year. My, one of my friends,
  149. uh uncles who has Alzheimer's as well
  150. went missing for a full day
  151. and put out a missing persons report and
  152. his uncle was found in another city,
  153. not even driving,
  154. I don't know how he got to the city he got to.
  155. But that's also a very scary thing. So we always need to check on older adults
  156. if their minds are not as sharp as they used to be.
  157. Also, if somebody who is either hearing impaired
  158. or um
  159. has issues with site, I found that
  160. if you just let them know that you're in the room either by like touching them,
  161. like tapping them on the shoulder or on their hand
  162. just to let them know that you're in their presence.
  163. So they don't feel
  164. that they're left alone.
  165. I also found this Youtube video,
  166. which is also another way of communicating with adults.
  167. Um It's very useful and it's about two minutes long. We can play it.