How I will communicate with an older patient.

Emotional Support and Empathy: Emotional support is when you support people just the way you are present with them because you have developed a sense of empathy.  Empathy involves a caring attitude when someone can see beyond his own assumptions and can imagine the thoughts and the feelings of someone else.  Here I will support Mrs. Smith the way she is.  When using empathy I will identify the feelings, emotions and experience of Mrs. Smith.  Here she will feel that someone is caring for her and she will feel important that someone understands what she is feeling.

Checking for Understanding: This is when the client tells you something and you put it in your own words and say it back to the client to check if you understood what she was saying.  Good listening involves thinking about what we hear while we are listening and checking our conversation.  Mrs. Smith tells me something and I paraphrase it and say it back to see if I understood her and there are no misunderstandings.

Reflecting Listening Techniques: Here we can understand other people’s emotions by watching their non-verbal communication but this is not enough.  We need to listen to people to understand their feelings and thoughts.  Listening is when you hear what the person is saying.  This involves understanding and interpreting what the person is saying and think about a reply.  Hearing is when you hear what the other person is saying without giving any attention.  Active listening is when you show interest in what the person is saying.  Here I will listen to what Mrs. Smith wants to tell me and then I will repeat phrases and emphasizes emotional aspects of communication through feeling statements.

Use of Probes and Prompts: You must ask Mrs. Smith short questions so that you will understand more about the topic she is talking about example ‘Can you tell me more?’ and if you think that Mrs. Smith has still some more things that she needs to tell you, you will remind her by asking another question example ‘Would you do this again?’.

Questioning Techniques: Open questions cannot be answered with a yes or no answer.  In this case, the answers required are longer and the client must think about the answers.  Open questions are likely to involve a complex cycle of communication in order to discuss issues.  These include questions such as ‘How would you describe your quality of life?’  I will use questioning techniques with Mrs. Smith by asking her ‘How is she feeling that she is now going to residential care?’ and I will wait for a full answer.