Caregivers' desired patterns of communication with nursing home staff- just TALKKK!

Individuals with cognitive impairment often represent a significant percentage of the residents in a nursing home nurse's care. With years of experience caring for their placed family members, caregivers of these residents are often experts in knowing the resident's needs, habits, behaviors, and moods. Caregivers often wish to convey this insider knowledge to nursing home staff. Furthermore, communication with caregivers promotes trust that personalized, safe, and effective care occurs when they are not there. Based on an interpretive study of the experiences of caregivers who place a family member with Alzheimer's disease in the nursing home, six preferred patterns of communication are presented in this article. The six patterns are represented by the acronym TALKKK (tell them; ask them; listen to them; know their family member by relating and communicating; be knowledgeable about dementia, its progression, dementia-specific care, and commonly used medications; and share that knowledge with them).