Unit 393 – UNDERSTAND SENSORY LOSS 1.1 Sensory loss can often be a hidden disability which can frequently lead to isolation and frustration at not being able to communicate efficiently with other people. With hearing loss, day to day activities such as watching television, using the telephone, hearing the doorbell, or just taking part in conversations can produce feelings of inadequacy. Conversely, not being able to distinguish faces, read the time on a clock or drive can produce the same feelings in a person who has vision loss. Having a dual sensory loss compounds the frustration and isolation a person feels when trying to communicate effectively. Many blind and partially sighted people lose the ability to see gestures and facial expressions, which are important parts of communication.
1.3 Explain how distress may affect the way an individual communicates. All individuals may react differently when feeling distressed. Some may become quiet, and not want to talk or make eye contact with you. Others may become angrier, and do all the talking in the conversation, and they may begin shouting. Individual’s self-esteem can be low, and their body language may be closed or negative, this can make communication difficult with an individual whom is distressed because you may not get any feed back from them, or you may not get a change to talk or be listened to to help them.
Some of the symptoms of distress are mumbled/garbled speech or stammering, anxiety, anger, aggressive body language and concentrating problems. These are barriers that impact on effective communication, leading to misunderstanding on both sides. If you are the person in distress, you cannot hear or able to understand the whole picture because of the vicious cycle mentioned above. Individuals who are distressed will not be able to concentrate properly or focus fully, therefore their communication skills will be negatively affected. Whenever an individual becomes distressed they may experience the sense of "self" being compromised, as in low self esteem, effective communication may suffer as an individual feels withdrawn or stressed.
Personal problems and worries can lead to lack of concentration, memory loss (dementia). Poor Understanding and language differences: Different nationalities and cultural differences, understanding accents and sayings can be amusing or an ambiguity of words and meanings but again a barrier for everyone. Misinterpretation of body language could have an impact. Values and Beliefs: Everyone’s values and beliefs can create underlying barriers often without people realizing which results in different responses to how something is dealt
Older adults who are hard of hearing often report that their hearing loss causes communication problems, which can result in difficulty thinking or concentrating. This results in inattentiveness, distraction, and boredom. The most serious consequence is withdrawal or abandoning participation. Older adults with hearing loss face many of the same fears that anyone with a disability encounters. They worry about loss of significant relationships or jobs or about being perceived as incompetent.
Dementia is a syndrome associated with an ongoing decline of the brain and its abilities. This includes problems with: * memory loss * thinking speed * mental agility * language * understanding * judgment People with dementia can lose interest in their usual activities, and have problems controlling their emotions. They may also find social situations challenging, lose interest in socializing, and aspects of their personality may change. A person with dementia may lose empathy (understanding and compassion), they may see or hear things that other people do not (hallucinations), or they may make false claims or statements. As dementia affects a person's mental abilities, they may find planning and organizing difficult.
These factors can affect a person’s ability to be a part of their own community or play active roles in society as they feel isolated and often lack of understanding from others in regard to their sensory loss. People with sensory loss often feel frustrated when trying to express themselves and can often be misunderstood in a variety of situations. Society’s attitudes towards people with sensory loss is that people often think just because they have a sensory loss that they have limited capacity in other areas and over compensate for this without asking the person of their abilities and taking the time to recognise their strengths. Individuals not having their own opinions valued and taken into account can affect their overall health and wellbeing. Society has improved in their attitudes towards those with hearing problems such as the use of subtitled information, the use of guide dogs for the blind.
They may find it difficult to carry out physical tasks due to sensory loss. A person is unique and may have had different life experiences which means the way dementia affects them is personal to them. They have different likes/ dislikes and needs so we must try to meet these the best we can. 1.3 A person with dementia may feel excluded from society because the way they are treated by other's. They may not be given the oppourtunity to be involved just because other's haven't got the time of day for them.
So expressing themselves using body language may be difficult do to lack of cognitive control in their limbs, or hands. They may also show the same signs as Alzheimer’s disease. • Lewy bodies dementia is very similar to Alzheimer’s disease, the difference being that they may have hallucinations and become fearful. This will affect communication due to their behaviour may mean they are too scared to talk, or be spoken to. Physical and mental health factors need to be taken into account when communicating with someone with dementia, they may also be hard of hearing, or have limited eyesight.
People in society can also be very prejudice and ignorant by acting and thinking they are better than people with sensory loss, also people who do not understand or who are ignorante to sensory loss think that because that person is different to them they think it gives them the right to make fun about them and this makes life difficult for the person with sensory loss, this could cause the person to become very withdrawn, isolated or become depressed. this could result in them loosing out on social involvment and interaction. lack of knowledge to sensory loss also has its problems for example if a carer was to looking