Do gestures and props help communication with older adults about prescription medicine?

Abstract One barrier to patients’ compliance in following instructions to take prescription medication is their memory of those instructions. Effective communication can be challenging with older adults, since people can use ineffective strategies to compensate for older adults’ presumed communication difficulties. The purpose of this study was to test whether older adults would benefit from gestures and/or props in hearing explanations of the appropriate use of prescription medication. Participants were 181 adults 65 years or older. They evaluated pharmacy students on their communication. Each participant watched video clips of pharmacy students explaining how to use fictional medications in three conditions: (1) speech only, (2) speech and gestures, and (3) speech and props. Participants were tested on their memory and rated the effectiveness of the communication of each pharmacy student. Participants showed no differences in memory across conditions. These findings do not support the use of gestures and/or props in effective communication with older adults.