The need to communicate with other people is among the core most important needs of all human beings. Whether we like it or not we are after all social animals, and we thrive in a social environment.
But sometimes there are barriers of communication between people. This is a sad state because many of the world’s problems could be easily solved if people communicated and understood each other well.
The case is such sometimes in the communication with older people. As we all know old age brings with itself a weakening of the human body and mind. This is not what always happens, but it does happen. And this gradual weakening happens to the senses of the body as well.
This translates into losing some of our hearing ability as we age. Moreover, older people tend to have more problems with focusing their minds as well. This will make it harder for them to find the adequate words with which they can express their thoughts in the way they intend to. When you combine this with the hearing impairment, then you have the perfect recipe for failure to communicate effectively.
You’ll want to handle these problems one at a time. First of all, the hearing impairment is not something that should be taken lightly. It may destroy a significant part of the quality of the life of a person. What you want to do in such a case is to provide the person with the hearing impairment with hearing aids. These are small gadgets that can improve their hearing dramatically, and thus it will improve your communication significantly.
If the older person has trouble in expressing his thoughts the way he intends to, then the best thing you can do is to develop patience. If you get nervous once you realize that the older person can’t express himself, it will throw your effort to communicate down the gutter. So really try to understand the condition of the older person. It definitely isn’t easy for him. So don’t make it all the more harder. And there’s one other thing that you can do in order to remedy this problem, or rather, what the older person can do under your guidance.
This thing is encapsulated in the word “sharpness”. If you can help the person stay sharp then he’ll have a lot easier time in focusing his mind on the expression of his thought. This will improve the communication dramatically as well. To do this the older person can read books or solve puzzles or study math or play chess or whatever keeps his mind stimulated.
Follow these few advices and you communicate a lot easier and more effectively with anyone
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