Since the elderly are a significant population of health care consumers, health care professionals should be trained to deliver health services to them as effectively and humanely as possible. While the primary tool for delivery of health care services to people is human communication, there is evidence that the communication between the providers and consumers of health care is in need of improvement. Researchers advocate the development of educational programs, such as a health communication course, that will help prepare people for occupations that deal with the problems and concerns of the elderly. Ten primary topics for study in such a course relate to the specific communication needs of the elderly: (1) the relationships between health care and human communication, (2) the use of language in the delivery of health care, (3) the importance of nonverbal communication in health care, (4) health care interviewing, (5) therapeutic communication in psychological and emotional areas, (6) group communication in health care, (7) the role of conflict in health care delivery, (8) intercultural communication in health care, (9) communication in medical organizations, and (10) communication with the terminally ill. By offering strategies for improving communication in health care, perhaps at least some situations that might be problematic will be handled more sensitively and effectively by communication trained health care professionals. (HTH)