Healthier aging: reaching and teaching older adults.

Offer group learning sessions if appropriate and practical. Motivation and readiness to learn set the stage for teaching patients of all ages. Explain to your patient why the information you’re teaching is important to him or her and how they’ll benefit from the new knowledge or skill. Then use familiar, reliable sources to give them information. For instance, you might give them brochures from the American Heart Association or the American Lung Association. An older adult learns from experience and likes to relate new tasks to familiar activities. Because each person comes to a teaching-learning session with something in mind that they wish to take home from it, ask questions or gather data ahead of time so that you can appeal to your patient’s sense of what’s most relevant. Find out what he or she wants to know and begin there. Many older adults enjoy learning with others, so offer group learning sessions if appropriate and practical. This strategy also provides socialization and gives your patient the opportunity to share ideas and information with her peers. To accommodate functional and physical changes, make your teaching sessions shorter than an hour because patients may be uncomfortable sitting for too long. Eliminate distractions by keeping the environment quiet. Turn off the TV or radio and close the door or pull the curtain.