Communication Barriers

Communication is a key factor to providing the best possible health treatment for patients.Communication barriers are a difficult part of being a nurse. In the hospital were I work, we come across barriers all the time. Working on a Medical floor patients come in very sick, whether it is a stroke, heart attack, dementia and are palliative. Communication with patient and family must be clear. I had a young patient that had a stroke with a speech deficit. I would explain every thing I was doing at the bedside. I was unclear if the patient did understand me so I consulted the occupation therapy to see if they had a communication board for the patient to use. I explained the board the the family to use as well so we all would use the same system. As a nurse you think of other factors that could be contributing to the communication barrier. Is the patient depressed, in pain, and frustrated. All of these factors should be addressed in the patients care. In this situation, the patient then became palliative. The patients srtoke was too sever to overcome the deficits. I feel that the communication barrier had kept us from really knowing what the patient was really feeling. I used all resourses that were readly available to me.