Currently I am on my neuro outpatients prac which has really highlighted for me the importance of non verbal communication.
Last week I treated a patient who has had a bilateral pontine infarction. Basically this patient has limited movement of her upper limbs, lower limbs, trunk and aphasic. Upon reading her patient notes I became quite stressed thinking in my head “how do I communicate with this women?” She arrived and on her lap was a mini keyboard which she communicated thru (spoke on her behalf) using one of her fingers to press the appropriate letters.
At first I kind of froze… I was not used to speaking to someone who did not respond back to me immediately. However throughout the session I became more comfortable. I began to really recognize ways of understanding someone non verbally. With this patient I followed her facial expressions, head movements, singular words she typed, and slight noises indicating whether she was uncomfortable or in pain. I found that I could even have a conversation and find out personal information about the patient like her favourite type of music, hobbies etc. Even in how you touch a patient; manual handling, stroking to activate sensory input to parts of the body, pressure of touch etc are forms of non verbal communication which contribute to a PT building patient rapport. I found that my treatment session was quite successful with the pt gaining as much from the session as I had intended
We learn so many skills as future therapists and in our blue assessment forms communication skills contribute a considerable amount. I traditionally have thought this referred more specifically to how you spoke with patients to make them feel comfortable in your hands. I think this situation highlighted to me the importance of non verbal communication. If you can’t speak to someone there are so many ways of building rapport through being more conscious of facial expression, manual handling, touch and body language. I ask anyone to express your thoughts on whether you too have become more conscious of non verbal forms of communication with some of the patients you have seen
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im currently on international placement at the moment and alot of the patients that i see cannot speak english. as a result, non verbal communication is pretty much how i've been getting by- this involves hand signals, facial expression, demonstrations etc. it feels pretty ridiculous sometimes, thats why im trying to make an effort to learn mandarin. also, i had a neuro placment where a patient had basically no voluntary movement except for his left elbow occasionally, and his eyes. no speech. after a few weeks of treating him, i began to see the messages he was trying to convey to me thru using his very little voluntary movment. it was pretty amazing. so i guess non verbal communication can often be the only way of communicating with some patients.
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