Nonverbal Communication: Communicating with the Elderly with Hearing Problems

meantime I communicated with my best with her do that she felt comfortable. Asa result, she gave a good cooperation and enjoyed the meal until finished.In my evaluating, I feel I make the right decision to accompany and assistMrs. A in feeding. Furthermore, I could develop my nurse-patient relationship.Although McCabe (2004, p.44) would describe it as a task-centredcommunication as one of the element caused the lack communication amongnurses, but I think my nurse-patient relationship communication both involved agood patient-centred communication and task-centred communication. In mypersonal opinion, I attended to Mrs. A as a patient to show my empathy becauseshe was unable to feed herself. It was also as my duty to feed her so that I couldmake sure the patient get the best care in the ward. So my involvement in thisnurse-patient relationship does not only restrict to the task-centredcommunication because (Burnard 1990, and Stein-Parbury 1993, cited inMcCabe 2002, p.44) define attending as a patient-centred process as wells as tofulfil the basic conditions as a nurse to provide the genuineness, warmth andempathy towards the patient. I was able to improve my non-verbalcommunication skills in my conversation with her during the feeding. As she washaving a hearing problem and could not communicate in the first languageproperly, so the non-verbal communication plays a role. Caris-Verhallen et al (1999, p.809) state that the non-verbal communication becomes important whencommunicating with the elderly people who develop a hearing problem. Hollman et al (2005, p31) suggests some effective ways to maximize the communication 5

with hearing impairment people such as always gains the person’s attentionbefore speaking, visible yourself to prevent them feel frighten and try to usesome sensitive touch. I feel this is a good experience to me because I learn todevelop my non-verbal communication. I used most of the body gesturersbecause of the