Background: Elderspeak communication is typically viewed as patronizing and infantilizing by older adults and can lead to resistive behaviors in persons living with dementia. Little is known about the presence of elderspeak communication in hospitals in the United States. Understanding this phenomenon in the hospital setting is needed in order to improve hospital dementia care.

Objectives: The purpose of the Nurse Talk study was to (1) describe attributes of elderspeak use in hospital dementia care and to (2) determine what characteristics are associated with nursing staff use of elderspeak communication with hospitalized patients with dementia.

Design: A cross-sectional observational study design was used to collect and analyze audio-recordings of nursing staff during care for hospitalized patients with dementia.

Setting: Three hospital units in one Midwestern university hospital in the United States.

Participants: A convenience sample of 53 staff nurses and nursing assistants that provided direct care to 16 patients with mild or more severe dementia recruited from October 2019 through mid-March 2020.

Methods: Eighty-eight care encounters were audio-recorded and coded for elderspeak communication using the Iowa Coding of Elderspeak scheme to determine the frequency and characteristics of elderspeak communication. A linear mixed effects model was used to determine what characteristics were associated with elderspeak and the frequency of elderspeak use by nursing staff to hospitalized patients with dementia.

Results: Over a quarter (28.7%) of all nursing staff speech directed towards patients with dementia constituted elderspeak and nearly all (96.6%) care encounters included some elderspeak. Particularly common attributes of elderspeak were minimizing words and mitigating expressions, childish terms and phrases, and collective pronoun substitution. A statistically significant interaction was identified between staff role and age (95% CI: -0.02, -0.00, p = .008) in predicting the frequency of elderspeak use, indicating that elderspeak was used more often by older staff nurses, whereas the age of nursing assistants remained constant across elderspeak use. Statically significant effects for delirium and length of stay were also demonstrated. Elderspeak use was 12.5% higher with patients with delirium (95% CI: 0.02, 0.23, p = .025) and increased 1.5% for each additional day the patient with dementia was hospitalized (95% CI: 0.00, 0.03, p = .035).

Conclusions: Elderspeak is present and pervasive in the acute care setting. Interventions targeted towards older staff nurses and nursing staff from hospital units that care for patients with delirium and longer lengths of stay are needed.

Tweetable abstract: This study identified that nursing staff are frequently using elderspeak (infantilizing speech) with hospitalized patients with dementia. @claireshaw_phd @IowaNursing.