Non-verbal Communication.

HOSPITAL STUDIES - ASSIGNMENT 1

Part A

When assessing somebody for the first time, it is important to look at his or her behaviour. It is crucial that the patient/client is listened to as well as looked at. This allows the carer to obtain a full assessment of the patient both in how they look and how they feel.

During my placement, I often had the chance to approach various residents. I spoke to and observed one of the male residents, I found that I could assess him and use his symptoms to answer the following questions:

What non-verbal communication could I observe?
Was he in any pain?
What was his skin colour like?
What was his skin integrity like?
Was he sweating?
Was he very active? Did he feel very active?
Was his breathing OK?
What was his posture like?

Non-verbal Communication

I spoke to this resident in particular for quite a long period of time and so I felt I gathered just enough information to assess his emotional state. This resident had been diagnosed as having Cancer of the bowels and considering this, his emotional state was quite good. He seemed very interested to talk to people and his non-verbal-communication was very positive, showing that he was in very high spirits.

Pain

When the resident was sat in his room alone, I would often hear him groaning due to the pain he was in. But this would not be the case when a carer or myself were in the room with him. He did not seem to want to bother anybody with his pain and tried to make the best effort he could to ignore it or ‘hide it’ in front of others.

Skin Colour/Integrity

From what I could observe, the resident looked very pale/yellow. This may have been due to any of the following factors:

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Pain

Skin Colour/Integrity

From what I could observe, the resident looked very pale/yellow. This may have been due to any of the following factors:

Poor Blood Supply
May have been tired at the time of the observation
May have had a low Hb
May have been cold

The integrity of the residents skin was also very pale, this may also have been due to the same factors affecting his skin colour.

Conscious/Activity Level

This resident was fully conscious but all of the way through the observation he appeared quite weak. He also seemed slightly lethargic meaning he may have needed sleep or not had enough sleep. Although this was the case, he still seemed attentive and always willing to talk – he did not seem to want to let his illness get him down.

Breathing

The residents breathing rate was very shallow and low. This may have been due to the bowel problems he had with his illness. The medication he was taking could also have had an affect on his breathing rate. As the resident was fairly tired at the time, he may have been feeling very rested and lethargic making his breathing rate lower due to being inactive.

Posture

The residents posture was continuously changing throughout the assessment. When I entered the room he was slumped in his chair. This gave me very negative non-verbal body language and felt that he wasn’t interested in talking to anybody. His posture soon changed though when I began talking to him, he sat up in his chair and leaned forward showing good body posture. During our conversation, he began to lean to one side of the chair, I think this could have been due to the pain he was in at the time.

Sweating

The resident did not show any signs of sweating at all during the observation. If he had begun sweating, this could have been due to being hot, therefore suffering from exertion, infection, being too warm or simply suffering from shock.

Part B

When talking to one of the residents on my placement at a local nursing home I found that she had difficulty hearing in her right ear. To try and ease this communication barrier between her and myself, I needed to make sure that my speech was mainly directed to her left side.

Whilst in conversation with the resident, I tried to keep my speech normal and clear. This meant that she could understand everything I was saying, or at least most things! The resident made a lot of eye contact with myself; I felt that this helped her understand what I was saying. Therefore I made the effort to look at her when I was speaking and also when listening to her. This showed that I was interested in what she had to say and it gave her more confidence to carry on talking to me.

The resident often found it hard to understand what myself and the other carers were saying. She often had to check her hearing aid to see if it was working properly. In more extreme cases, where the resident may be completely deaf it would be important to have somebody who knows sign language as part of the care team. Another way of communicating with a deaf person would be to write the message down on a piece of paper rather than saying it verbally. If the deaf person was able to lip-read then the carer could speak and write to the resident at the same time. This would give the client a better understanding of what they were saying. As the carer can explain in writing what he/she is saying, they could also explain with pictures and diagrams. These pictures may make it harder to understand a message than in writing but it gives the resident more of a challenge and allows them to think for themselves.

Gestures and body postures are particularly important when communicating with a person who is deaf or particularly deaf. By nodding my head to the resident during communication, showed that I was listening to what she had to say and that I was interested. I felt that by showing an interest in what she was saying, it prompted her to continue speaking.