Cue Cards or Communication Cards are visual tools that can be used to overcome communication difficulties with clients living with dementia. They assist and support caregivers, staff and volunteers to engage with the person in their care.
Your cards are good, and I applaud you for attempting to provide additional resources to people who are struggling with the care of a loved one or patients. However, I need to stress the importance of a speech therapy evaluation in this instance. Our job is to determine the best mode of communication for patients. For example, some patients no longer have the eye sight for detailed pictures, and need large print icons. Conversely, some patients don’t understand the abstract nature of icons, and need pictures. And how many pictures/icons can the patient use before becoming visually overwhelmed? If presented with too many choices, it can increase agitation. It is a speech therapist’s job to work through all of that, and more. You have such great resources here, please just know your speech therapists are a resource for everyone, also. We are here to support not only patients, but caregivers.
katherine
29th Jun 2021
Leisure & Lifetyle Coordinator
So amazed and thankful that we have this site to get great resources we need. One of my resident lost her speech and couldn't communicate. I found this clue card I'm looking for to use for her. So happy! Thank you very much Golden Carers!!!
Karen Modisett
22nd Mar 2021
I appreciate that you were offering this information. I wondered why black and white images are preferred. Perhaps it's because it's the simplicity of the design. And the cost for printing. I just wondered what the diagnostic reason was.
One thing is that they can't be saved as separate pages. I'll have to print them and scan them and then place them in the document.
I cut them out and used the enlarge option on our copy machine. I then laminated them used a hole punch and a zip tie to keep them together. Almost like flip cards. It works until speech therapy comes up with something else. Hope this helps.
I have started to use these with patients on a psycho-geriatric ward. I feel that how the patient is feeling is so open to misinterpretation by medical staff simply because useful communication tools have not been considered. These cards are an amazing start in an attempt to break down some of the communication barriers however encouraging medical staff to get on board is unfortunately the main challenge. Can anyone recommend even more communication cue cards that might be available. So simple but soon effective. Many Thanks.
Hi Alison, I find that if you search for 'communication cards' and then look in images tab of google you get a lot of relevant results. Some are free and some you have to buy.
I have been using these cue cards and they are excellent. I would like to fine sentence in other languages. Does anyone have any ideas or where I could get this
And our library has a wide range of communication cards and guides at https://library.mac.org.au we often recommend lifestyle workers to borrow the product from us to trial it, before purchasing it, as many of the products on the market can be quite pricey!
Thank you, Shannon, for sharing this priceless information.
Miriam
27th Jan 2019
These are awesome and perfect for my client who has Parkinson's and difficulty verbally communicating his needs in the middle of the night. Thank you so much for sharing these with us!
Only today my boss asked me to source and make cue cards for a Russian resident who has recently come to the high care facility where I work, she is in advanced stage of dementia and already reverted back to her native language of Russian, within days another resident joins us and she's German! This sight is amazing! Hopefully these residents' lives will be enriched and their ability to communicate to me their needs, easier! Thank you so much
Hi everyone, we have a great set of Italian language ones also available on our website which you can access for free. There are also many other resources available to share.
We are also looking at using these card for patients who have had strokes and MS and that is only the spectrum we have so far. We are going to speak to our colleagues in young adult services to see if any of their communication cards could be adapted to meet our needs and vice a versa
What a great idea Michelle - even more applications for the cue cards we hadn't thought of. If we can help you in anyway to adapt them to different needs, let us know.
Thanks everyone! Yes great feedback - the communication cards are suitable for people with hearing impairment and those from non English speaking backgrounds.
Patrice
10th May 2016
Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist
This is great...Love the idea...Thank you for sharing.
Carol
10th May 2016
Recreational Activity Officer Coordinator
Not only for people who have dementia but people who have a hearing impairment, for people whose first language isn't English, perfect idea thank you, Well Done!
This is also quite helpful for people whose first language isn't english. We were just discussing this during our last meeting. Thank you very much for this!
Great. Thanks. Not only for people who have dementia but people who have hearing impairment would benefit from these cards. I'll talk to CNC and managers. Satomi
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