EXAMINING COMMUNICATION THEORY

Examining Communication Theory

Examining Communication Theory

Introduction

This is assignment on the application of communication theory to nursing with be based on a reflective account of a patient who I helped care for on a number of occasions during my community nursing placement. For confidentiality I will call the patient by a different name, in this case he will be called John White he lives at home with his wife is in his late fifties and is diagnosed with end stage multiple sclerosis (MS). He has a daughter who works in Bristol studying MS and she comes back to stay at the house every weekend. Multiple sclerosis is a 'chronic progressive nervous disorder involving loss of myelin sheath around certain nerve fibres'.

John entered into the end stages of MS near the end of 2007 and the turning point for this was when he was no longer able to swallow. John requested that when it reached this stage that he didn't have a peg feed (a type of feeding tube) inserted and he be allowed to die through lack of nutrients. However, John's wife and his daughter couldn't see him die so they gave consent and asked for John to be peg fed. John's end stage MS means he cannot move any part of his body wilfully, apart from his fingers and his left arm in a basic motion of up and down. He sometimes smiles and can move his neck and head in a nodding motion, he also has double vision due to the hyosine that he has through a syringe driver along with other drugs. John is unable to speak, on a good day we can ask John a question and he can answer yes or no by raising his left thumb up or slightly tilted down respectively.

As stated this assignment will be a reflective account of how I contributed to caring for John and the learning experience I gained communicating with him.

Communication

Communication is a strong and important aspect of nursing comprised of many different sectors and levels. It is important for a nurse to become an effective and empathic communicator and before they are able to do this they must become effective at understanding themselves. Once you understand your own behaviour and reason for motive, only then can you develop a sense of empathy begin to be able to see things from another perspective. How can you honestly ...