Why doctors should learn to talk to patients

Bedside Manner Makes Dementia Diagnosis More Painful

A Ukiah
Daily Journal reader wrote Dr. Peter Gott concerning the way a doctor told her husband
that though he seems okay now, "maybe in six months from now when I see you again, you
probably won't know who I am. And you won't recognize your wife at all."

"That was nine months ago," she wrote. "He has since painted the house, taken a motor
trip and spoken at a convention. I notice little odd things, but six months? I think
the VA doctor needs some therapy of her own mind if she doesn't know how to talk to
patients."

source : alzheimer daily news

It is pointing out how important it is to be careful when we talk to a patient, what kind of message we are conveying to him, how much we are considering him as a person, as a human being, a subject of his own existence despite of the disease. It is a sign of respect.

 We dont know how much he is able to understand, how much he is ready to understand and what would be the consequences of our lack of attention on his life. A sick person is still a person, do we have the right to look at him, to treat him as almost dead or helpless,
showing him the little concern we have for him after telling the serious diagnosis, the "verdict".

Ms Hendi LINGIAH
clinical psychologist.
lingiah_hendi@yahoo.fr