Rethinking patient–provider care through visual communication

Abstract

The case study presented in this article developed an improved intervention for visually communicating with persons diagnosed with a communication disorder known as aphasia. The Visual Interactive Narrative Intervention (VINI) assists health-care providers in educating post-stroke persons with aphasia (PWA) about their stroke, symptoms, rehabilitation options, and quality of life issues. Visual communication is under-utilized to convey health information to PWA despite its ability to capitalize on their intact cognitive and visual processing. The current Reflections on Practice summarizes visual guidelines from previous research, discusses visual design principles to achieve these guidelines, and presents a case study of creating visual stimuli for PWA based on these considerations and initial pilot testing with PWA. The case study demonstrates the creative process, the visual design considerations, and the interdisciplinary effort (i.e. health professionals, artists, and communication scholars) necessary for visually communicating with PWA.