Elderly patients facing Informed Consent: when understandability affects health communication

The elderly patient and his/her relatives have to deal with Informed Consent (IC) increasingly, as this is a mandatory legal requirement. When dealing with the elderly patient, the doctor must have some specialized knowledge together with a particularly strong psychological background, a holistic vision of illness along with a deep understanding of the varied expressions of human discomfort and full consciousness of the criticality of information transmission for decision making. Our study investigates the history of practices and strategies of knowledge transfer to non-specialized audiences in the field of health communication, looking at the implications of IC. The paper is aimed at assessing the effects of information delivery as a form of support to the IC paper document: the level of the subjects’ understanding, satisfaction, willingness to participate, anxiety or any form of psychological distress is considered. We will sustain the argument that the third millennium practitioner is asked to support the elderly patient facing the IC issue: as a result, far from being a mere informant and a scientist, he/she must be also a good communicator and an expert both in medical and ethical issues, as many cases of patient-doctor interactions in managing elderly patients demonstrates.