How Religious and Cultural Differences Affect Caregiving Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply. Close

How Cultural and Religious Differences Impact Caregiving

Ensure your loved one s needs beliefs and values are known to health care providers

Anchiy / getty images June McKoy, M.D., had a request for the physicians who treated her aunt when she accompanied her older relative to medical visits: “Please don’t use the word ‘’ to my aunt,” she recalls telling them. McKoy grew up in England but was born in Jamaica and was intimately shaped by her birthplace and Jamaican heritage. “Your culture goes with you, wherever you go, it defines you,” says McKoy, who’s the program director of the geriatric medicine fellowship at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. This cultural embodiment included the way her family approached medicine. “In terms of Jamaican culture, if you find something really bad, you wouldn’t put it in terms that would frighten the patient,” she says. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Although doctors ultimately discovered that her aunt had , McKoy asked them to use other words, like “tumor,” to describe her condition because “once you say ‘cancer,’ it really brings up a great deal of anxiety.” McKoy emphasized that her aunt was educated; her request didn’t “mean that she was stupid,” but rather signaled a difference between the way her Jamaican family viewed medicine and the way it was practiced in the United States. She also asked medical providers not to urge her aunt to have because “it goes against her culture to [have an operation] because she’s not going to give in.” It’s cultural nuances like these that McKoy says are essential for families to communicate to the physicians and medical providers of the older adults whose medical care they are shepherding. She and other geriatricians and physicians have the following advice for families who want to ensure that their unique cultural and faith needs are being integrated into the medical care of their loved ones.

Communicate wishes clearly

Erika Hutz, an osteopathic physician and geriatrician with Swedish Medical Group in Chicago, says it’s impossible for families to over-communicate when it comes to the kind of . She adds that it’s helpful when patients bring in lists with specific wishes for their care. “Physicians need to take these courses that are now pretty much mandatory in hospitals to better communicate with patients,” says Hutz. “But the patient and families also have to advocate for themselves. And if something's very important to them, then they need to let their medical staff know about it.” Hutz pointed to one situation in which she had an older adult patient from the Middle East who would come to appointments with her son. Hutz said her patient would always “get very, very sick around certain times of the year.” Family Caregiving Savings on in-home caregiving services See more Family Caregiving offers > Reflecting on that experience, Hutz says she wonders if the family didn’t tell her about the Ramadan fasting because they worried Hutz would forbid the mother from partaking in the religious observance that requires Muslims to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Hutz emphasizes the doctor-patient relationship is no longer a paternalistic one like in previous decades. She would have started a conversation in which she would have given recommendations for fasting during Ramadan while avoiding the health issues she had been experiencing. Ultimately, Hutz says, “if you have a health care provider that does not speak your language, that has a different ethnic background than yourself, or religious background, that communication is key. Because you do have to advocate for yourself or have the because sometimes, a health care provider is very willing to learn but may not understand exactly what you're going through if they're of a different faith or a different culture.”

Use language resources

As the person in charge of her mother-in-law’s medical care, Hina Patel accompanies Shantaben J. Patel to all her appointments. Dr. Hina Patel and her mother-in-law Shantaben J. Patel Courtesy of Dr. Hina Patel Because both Hina and Shantaben speak Gujarati, with Shantaben speaking very little English, Hina acts as a translator during the visits. Hina says she’s critical to smoothing language obstacles and medical understanding for her mother-in-law. “Because of the language barrier, I’m overseeing everything she needs care for,” Hina says of Shantaben, who’s 89 and deals with and mobility issues. “I’m kind of a bridge between her and medical care.” However, if the trusted go-between is not as familiar with certain terminology, physicians want patients and families to know there are other options so that health care-related information is clearly understood. “I definitely want all patients to know that it is their right to have someone [medically] translate for them,” Hutz says. Hutz has experienced complicated situations, like when she has Rohingya patients from Myanmar, and “it’s extremely difficult to get a translator, so sometimes they're waiting, and it can be a pain on our end. But I cannot successfully give advice and treat a patient if I can't understand what their medical problem is.” AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Erin Chan Ding is a contributing writer who covers health, parenting, fitness, technology, gender and race. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times. MORE ON CAREGIVING AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Family Caregiving offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Family Caregiving offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS