The way some elderly people are spoken to in hospital

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I was visiting an elderly relative in hospital last week. She's a retired headmistress, a top ranking bridge player, and an extremely capable person. Yet everytime a young staff member came near her they spoke to her as if she was about six years old:

"How are we today Joan"?
"Now, I think we should try and walk a bit today Joan"?

etc etc, all in a loud, patronising voice.

I've seen this with my own parents as well. It's undignified and demeaning, especially to a generation (in their eighties) who wouldn't be used to being addressed by their first name by strangers.

AIBU to find it annoying the way all elderly people seem to be treated as if they're in their dotage by some young hospital staff?

Oh this really really annoys me.
It’s a complete lack of respect in my view.

My wife was in hospital a few weeks ago. I liked that the nurses introduced themselves using their first names and called me John and my wife by her first name. We are both 71 so not exactly old but not young either.
There was no disrespect in the use of our names. We were both treated as adults who knew what was going on.

I agree, it’s incredibly patronizing. Just because people are old and frail doesn’t mean they have revertedto the developmental stage of a toddler.

Manners change over time. It used to be polite to refer to me as Mrs. Terry Pratchett. But I would consider that rude now. Ms Pratchett would be fine. My first name would also be fine.

The staff are trying to be polite using a first name, which is considered friendly and warm now.

Loudness is tricky because a lot of older people have hearing loss and it's good to be loud enough for understanding.

The annoying, patronizing nonsense is awful.

When my mother was in hospital they asked her what she wanted to be called & wrote it on a board next to her bed along with the things that were most important to her, e.g. family, wildlife presumably as conversation topics. That was a hospital that specialised in care for the elderly though.

At the hospital I work in we always ask patients what they would like to be called, and actually the majority of elderly patients want to be called by their first name

My late father was always known by his middle name. But because his official records had him down as Michael John, staff constantly called him Michael, a name he'd never ever gone by.

He did tell them a couple of times to just call him 'John', but then just gave up.

Oh I know, it's horrible. So patronising.
When I was a child I was in hospital three times and was treated badly too, never forgot it.
Kids and elderly are most vulnerable.

I'm a carer and 100% of people that I go to want calling by their first name or known nickname. Not patronising though

This was a major issue with my fathers care and I got to the point where I put a board up over his bed with his name, interests and that they don't need to shout. He used to have poor hearing from engineering work he did back in the day but now he is extremely sensitive to loud noises. The DC being loud is enough to give him ringing ears.

I completely agree with you. It's very patronising.
What can be done? Not sure. Think it's just the current culture within the NHS.

Funnily enough me and my mum were talking about this yesterday, she’s having three weeks of daily radiotherapy and has got to know some of the staff. She’s a capable woman, gets the bus there and back on her own etc yet there is one nurse there (who she says is lovely but) talks to her like a child, loud, slow and patronising. My mums only 66 !

YANBU. I'm sure most elderly people are happy to be called by their first name, but I think it's polite for staff to just ask them first. They are from a generation where people they dealt with professionally would always have called them Mr or Mrs, and that should be acknowledged.

And absolutely no need whatsoever to use 'we' instead of 'you'. That's rude and patronising.

I totally agree. It's even worse in mental health units. An elderly relative with depression, who used to be a research scientist was treated like this: so were all the other patients. It's infantilisation and a form of control to reinforce we're the boss mentality that was rampant there. I reported that & all the other demeaning & illegal behaviour to Quality of Care Commission.

wicker That's funny you say that your mother is 66 and treated this way. I got the impression from the way my father was treated that the minute you reach 65 you are considered a very old person who has zero ability to do anything! I think they forget these people managed to make it to 65. They are doing something right like feeding themselves etc.

And yet if we were to use "Mrs smith" we get accused of being cold and uncaring and putting up barriers.

Did it occur to you that the patient may like and prefer to be called by their first name? Most patients would say "please call me Mabel rather than Mrs smith" after the first few times of being called by their surname.

Also people need to learn to speak up, if you prefer to be called Mrs Smith then say so and that will be written on your board behind your bed or on the handover notes but I'm not psychic.

Well let the patient speak. It's not hard. It's rude to just presume you can call someone by their first name.

I can't see anything disrespectful in what you've quoted them as saying.

Really Roobub? You don't think it's disrespectful to say 'how are we today' 'I think we should do this or that'? Do you speak to people in the normal course of events like that?

Pandora I think the polite thing is to ask the patient what they would like to be called. The example of a patient being called by his first name when he always went by his middle name is quite typical.

Not a health care individual, but a friend of DH's (we'll call her Sarah) who used to talk to her FIL like this. Used to really annoy me, so I can only imagine how he felt. He had a stroke and was using a wheelchair. His speech was slow, but his mind was absolutely 100% perfect and he was an incredibly intelligent man. He had been a MP when he was younger.

I remember being at Sarah's house once for a family celebration and her FIL was there and she came over to him "Would we like a teensy wincy bit of cakey now?" She was speaking to him like he was a toddler and completely humiliating him.
I ended up sitting next to him at once stage and he started talking to me and we discovered he knew my grandfather so he was chatting away to me about where they grew up etc. Afterwards his own daughter was talking to him and I could see him looking across at me and trying to point. She came over to me afterwards and said "Thanks so much for talking to Dad there. He was delighted. He thought you were lovely. Thanks for treating him normally"

There's absolutely no need to speak to older people as though they're toddlers. They deserve to be treated with respect.

Sorry, OP, it's very easy to fall into patronising when dealing with a lot of deaf and dementing patients day in day out. I know I do it. Guilty, shoot me. It doesn't mean I don't care - quite the reverse, actually.
Some patients respond better to the higher pitched 'patronising' tone, just like younger children.
I love to know what my patients used to do for a living but it is rarely documented and we often do not have time to discuss it as we are dealing with more urgent matters. Next time I am wiping someone's bum for them as the nurses are too busy, I will try to bear this in mind.

I would always choose to be called Mrs but dare not ask when I am in hospital or similar as to many it sounds stuffy and unfriendly and I would be afraid it would affect how I was treated. I think it is more professional to keep using Mrs/Mr and hate this pretence in many situations today that we are friends; no it is a 'business' relationship only and it makes me uncomfortable.

Some patients respond better to the higher pitched 'patronising' tone, just like younger children.

So you just use it on everyone over a certain age?