Most Effective Ways to Educate Patients About Their Conditions

By Elisabeth Cade, MA, MHA, CCC-SLP, CDP
Speech Language-Pathologist, Connecticut

As clinicians, it is necessary to include patient education in nearly every session that we provide. Simply participating in our skilled sessions several times weekly is not likely to achieve our patients’ goals, nor will it engender the development of consistent home exercise performance. By providing effective education about the “why” as well as the “how”, we help our patients (and their families or caregivers) to understand the “method to our madness,” which can increase their intrinsic motivation to participate fully in their therapy programs. 

We are often the first and potentially only healthcare professionals to really discuss our patients’ symptoms and diagnoses (and the anatomical/physiological bases for them) in an in-depth manner that they can also understand. Sharing information at a level that our patients, families, and caregivers can understand is crucial to optimizing their active participation in the rehabilitation process. I have had so many patients over the years tell me that they learned more from me about their diagnoses in one session than they ever had from their medical providers!   

Our Impact as Clinicians 

Compared to their medical providers, we see our patients more frequently, spend more time with them, and can more acutely tune into how they best receive and understand information. Additionally, we may be more approachable and better able to set our patients at ease without eliciting anxiety. As clinicians specializing in treating older adults, we realize the impact of vision and hearing loss and processing deficits that may be age-related and can tailor our education to compensate for these conditions. 

We may ask ourselves how much detail we should or should not provide to our patients and their families or caregivers about their diagnoses. I find it helpful to start by asking them what THEY know and understand first. This allows me to target my education directly to their needs and helps to determine the level of language specificity that is needed. By ascertaining their current knowledge base, we can avoid telling them something that they already know; some people will find that to be bothersome, and it may turn them off, just when we want them to tune in! This is also a good time to ensure that you have the permission of your patient to speak frankly and openly with their involved family or caregivers.  

Including Imagery  

Education that is provided across multiple modalities can be more salient and more easily understood by the layperson. I always have my laptop handy for Point of Service documentation, so I frequently access Google images of anatomy and physiology to integrate into patient education. There are also apps (I sometimes use “Larynx ID” with voice and/or swallowing patients) that can give good visual representations to help our patients better understand why and how their bodies are behaving or responding in a certain way.  

Tailoring education to relate a patient’s Home Exercise Program to their diagnoses can greatly improve buy-in and carry-over. For example, if I want a patient to understand how on earth doing Chin Tuck Against Resistance (CTAR) is going to help them eat and drink, I’m going to start with providing education with images about normal and disordered swallow anatomy and physiology. I make sure to explain how THEIR specific physiology impacts their ease and safety of eating and drinking. When I include an image of the musculature of the tongue, they can better understand how this specific exercise can contribute to swallowing. They will be much more likely to complete the exercise consistently. 

Written Reference Materials 

Written educational materials–whether a list, brief notes, a drawing, or an entire article–allow patients to refer to them as often as is necessary and to share with others. I save files directly onto my desktop or in my Dropbox cloud storage so I can easily share them in person and via email with my patients. Some I prepare myself, others I download from reliable sources. Many disease- and disorder-related organizations have patient-centered information readily accessible online. Parkinson’s Foundation, for example, has a Newly Diagnosed Guide that can be downloaded for free on their website. I can review an entire document or pertinent parts of it during a session, or leave it with a patient and then ask them about what aspects resonate with them or prompt additional questions.  

Contextual Examples 

Providing examples from our professional experience facilitates our patients’ understanding of how their diagnoses affect their day-to-day function. When explaining to a post-stroke patient, for example, how their recovery trajectory may wax and wane as opposed to being a linear and finite process, I can help them develop realistic expectations and not get discouraged if they have a “down day.” It may also help them to understand how pacing themselves one day can help the next. Giving examples of other patients’ experiences of ideational or ideomotor apraxia might help them to feel less silly or frustrated when they find that they are sometimes unable to do “simple” tasks like using a microwave oven or even brushing their teeth! 

When working with older adults, it is important to remember that in addition to their primary diagnoses, “parts wear out,” and often these parts involve hearing, sight, and cognition. This is one reason why multi-modality education is so important! Our older patients may need more repetition, simpler language, and more demonstration or visual stimuli. By asking them to tell us what they have understood, we can ensure both that they have received our message and that we can reinforce concepts that they are not understanding fully. Including family or caregivers in this process and encouraging them to ask questions allows them to support our patients between sessions. 

Knowledge is power, and when our patients understand their diagnoses, it can give them more ownership over their bodies and decrease feelings of helplessness. As PTs, OTs, and SLPs, we are uniquely positioned to help our patients learn more about their diagnoses and, therefore, to be more active participants in their care plans and individualized goals and to maximize their gains.