Return-Path: <root> Received: (from root@localhost) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) id f7VBtMd10628 for health-archive@nifl.gov; Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:55:22 -0400 (EDT) Resent-Message-Id: <200108311155.f7VBtMd10628@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from sphnt3.sph.uth.tmc.edu (sphnt3.sph.uth.tmc.edu [129.106.2.14]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f65FVff01723 for <nifl-health@nifl.gov>; Thu, 5 Jul 2001 11:31:42 -0400 (EDT) content-class: urn:content-classes:message Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Subject: RE: [NIFL-HEALTH:3156] Research on bringing a partner to medical appts X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.4712.0 Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 10:27:23 -0500 Message-ID: <40B30BA5E139F648B2EA60E6AE3A7B260DA3CB@sphnt3.sph.uth.tmc.edu> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: [NIFL-HEALTH:3156] Research on bringing a partner to medical appts Thread-Index: AcEDzGiL29qyS7EFQ8O33N3mV0DF4ABl94rg From: "Popham, Karyn" <KPopham@sph.uth.tmc.edu> To: <nifl-health@nifl.gov>, <lspotter@att.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by literacy.nifl.gov id f65FVff01723 Resent-From: root@literacy.nifl.gov Resent-Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:55:22 -0400 Resent-To: health-archive@nifl.gov Status: O Content-Length: 2348 Lines: 57 It is certainly a widely recommended practice in the patient education community. The companion can take notes, can serve as a check on what the patient thought he or she heard, and can be a significant help to those who are having communication difficulties because of age, infirmity, fatigue, pain, or shock (e.g., from a diagnosis). They can also serve as a check on the medical provider's tendency (present more often than one would hope) to dismiss or denigrate questions (particularly when they come from elderly women). I can certainly vouch from personal experience that I or my sister always go with my mother to significant medical appointments: we don't attend her routine physical therapy or follow-up sessions, but you can bet we're there when diagnosis or treatment decisions are made or when she will be receiving instructions for tests or new medications. I can also vouch from painful personal experience the value of having someone there to take notes and--perhaps even more important--summarize back to the doctor what he or she just said. Particularly when doctors don't bother to put it in writing, such notes can be literally life-saving. The doctor told me I had hepatitis. The doctor told me to eat a high-protein diet. Either the doctor did not say or I did not hear that it should also be a low-fat diet. I was a vegetarian. I lived on peanut butter the next three months. My SGOT counts went through the roof, and it's really rather amazing I lived through it. (This was back in the early 70s. Even then, the mantra among business was "verbal orders don't go: PUT IT IN WRITING". Medicine learns slowly: when was the last time your doctor gave you any instructions in writing?) Check PubMed for "Physician-Patient Relations" and particularly look at Deborah Roter's work on patient-physician communication. Cheers, Karyn Popham Houston, Texas -----Original Message----- From: Linda S. Potter [mailto:lspotter@att.net] Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 9:32 AM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [NIFL-HEALTH:3156] Research on bringing a partner to medical appts Could anyone provide references for published studies, or other articles, on the value of bringing a friend or family member to medical appointments? In other words, are two heads better than one? Thanks very much. Linda Potter lspotter@att.net
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