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When might the use of gestures help facilitate communication between a health care provider and a patient?

Physical gestures or body language can be helpful and even vital when a health care provider and a patient have a language barrier. In circumstances where the patient and health care provider do not at all speak the same language, gestures may be used to express information about symptoms, onset of injury or illness, and possible treatments, as well as for requesting and affirming consent to examination or treatment. Even when a patient and provider ...

Physical gestures or body language can be helpful and even vital when a health care provider and a patient have a language barrier. In circumstances where the patient and health care provider do not at all speak the same language, gestures may be used to express information about symptoms, onset of injury or illness, and possible treatments, as well as for requesting and affirming consent to examination or treatment. Even when a patient and provider do speak the same language, sometimes there is a barrier in terms of specialized terminology. Doctors and nurses are trained to use a highly specific and technical form of language, and not every patient will be prepared to communicate this way. A patient who cannot describe very specific body parts or symptoms may use gestures to approximate the information a health care provider needs.


As much as the action of physical gestures can convey information, refraining from gesture may say just as much. People who suffer from long-term or chronic pain in a part of the body may come to "favor" this body part by trying to use it as little as possible. This restraint from movement may go on for so long that it is accepted by the patient as a normal part of life and they may not feel it needs addressing by a doctor. Even in cases of long-term, accepted or relatively ignored pain, attention should be given to the illness or injury by a health care provider. The ways in which we do not gesture where most people would can help a physician notice health problems a patient has not vocally expressed. 


Health care providers can learn as much from their patients' use or disuse of physical gestures as they can learn from verbal expression — sometimes more!

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