Communication Barriers between Nurses and Patients

In the nursing profession, there are communication barriers between nurses and patients. Some communication barriers with elderly patients are loss of hearing, visual impairment, memory impairment, speech impairment and the inability to speak English. These make communication between nurses and patients difficult.

In my nursing career, I have experienced all of these communication barriers with patients. An example that I have experienced, and would like to share, was with a patient who had a speech impairment from a stroke. The patient`s speech was slurred, and was very hard to understand at times. When the patient was unable to express them self to me, the patient would become violet towards myself. This was frustrating for that patient, because at times I was unable to understand what they were trying to say. This was also frustrating for myself, because I was unable to help the patient, and the patient was getting violet with me. In the future, if this were to happen again, I think that I would try to get the patient to calm down, and use flash cards or a communication board.