Teaching Low Literacy Patients
Teaching is the most common skilled service offered in home health. Unfortunately, many of our patients are unable to read at an advanced level or they are unable to concentrate on complex reading materials because of medications, stress or disease processes. Additionally, many of our patients are also visually impaired. This makes teaching the elderly a special challenge. Listed below are some websites that feature low literacy, simple to read teaching guides. There is also a great article I snagged from the Parkland Hospital website on how to teach low literacy patients. If you have any additional resources you would like to share, please post below in the comments section.
A collection of low literacy handouts for diabetes
http://www.learningaboutdiabetes.org/lowLitHandouts.html
A great heart failure teaching guide for low literacy patients with easy to understand illustrations for the functionally illiterate patient in both Spanish and English:
http://www.nchealthliteracy.org/comm_aids/Heart_Failure_Intervention_eng_v1.pdf
http://www.nchealthliteracy.org/comm_aids/Heart_Failure_Intervention_esp_v1.pdf
Low literacy H1N1 vaccine document
http://www.ncfh.org/docs/H1N1_Low%20Literacy%20Flyer.pdf
Great General Nutrition Education Tips complete with learner feedback documentation
A great guide to teaching low literacy patients from Parkland Hospital.
http://www.parklandhospital.com/patients_visitors/health_information/pdf/gdl%20teaching%20ll.pdf
A collection of varied teaching materials at a low literacy level:
http://www.parklandhospital.com/patients_visitors/health_information/materials_viewall.html
