A Picture Really Is 1,000 Words

The internet has given rise to more graphic information. How do you feel when you hit a gray page of text? Depressed? Bored? Anxious?

Now imagine you are dealing with a serious illness. You need to understand the disease and it's treatment so you/your significant other/your child can have the best management possible. The doctor can hand you several gray pages of type. Lots of words and information contained in those pages, but at a time you likely feel overwhelmed, who wants to study?

In science and medicine, we have started creating infographic abstracts to summarize journal articles. They provide a quick summary of studies and findings, facilitating discussion, especially on social media. So why wouldn't our patients appreciate the same sort of presentation?

I took some of my old patient information handouts and transformed them into more graphic forms. I have posted one on childhood nephrotic syndrome here. The first one had no graphic elements, just a full page of text. Obviously, I can't include every bit on that page here, so it's been whittled down to the essentials. This document cannot substitute for a discussion with the patient and family, but it's a good reminder after the talk, and they can scribble notes while I'm talking. I don't expect them to know what albumin is; I explain it as I explain the disease. Never underestimate the power of big type and colors to make a topic feel less threatening to the learner. We may not be able to make the disease benign, but we can simplify its explanation.

I am trying to get more of my patient materials converted to an infographic handout, but this takes more time than you think. Given the poor level of health literacy in the US, we all need to work on better materials for communication with our patients.