How can I get a report from the doctor if my dad either forgets or doesn’t understand what the doctor tells him?

Thanks much for all the advice! I will call the doctors office today and ask. Our dad has indeed been very good at giving the impression that he both hears and understands the doctor, but if I talk to him and ask questions a few different ways, he will say things like "the doctor turns around to do something, (I assume "multi-tasking") and I cant hear him". Our dad's elder sister has dementia very badly and the doctors assure him he does not, however he stresses himself out so much thinking that if he forgot something it is because he too has dementia. The frustrating thing has been that the doctors (he has a few) really havent had the best bedside manner. One called my dad the other day to "warn him" he needs to see his heart doctor. My dad had the weekend to worry, get out his will, and be depressed. When all the doctor wanted to impart was that he should see his heart doctor to ensure there weren't bigger problems. - Thanks again, this has been very informative and helpful.

The last nine months have been a blur of appointments/hospital/rehab for my dad but escpecially my Mom. I have not had one Dr. office/surgeon refuse to talk to me or my sister when we have called or left messages for them. We had two where we talked to the nurse, one was great and the other was just relaying messages from the Dr. We fired the later Dr., he was well how should I say, just not a good Dr. I know some offices are more strict than others about releasing information but we have just been blessed with people that knew we were just trying to take care of our parents. The rehab place did have a place to enter names of those that they were allowed to communicate regarding my mother's care but my sister and I do not have medical POA. We just listed our names during admission. My Dad has medical POA but he is 85 and would really be no help.

We do try to go to most appointments with them, really the Drs. are smart enough to know most people (not all) in their 80s dont understand what they are saying. At least not fully.
God Bless

The best thing would be for someone to go to the doctor's office with your Dad -the doctor may not realize that his hearing is not great my Mom is able to hide her hearing loss very well and appears to understand when she in fact does not hear what is being said or maybe you could call the doctor but good luck with that doctors are so time pressured these days-he might be willing to dicate to his nurse and send you a note if you call his office and explain why you want to hear from him and any instructions he has for your Dad elders can be very cagey about telling the whole story esp. if it is something that do not want to do like follow-up test,

um only if you have poa for health care- you can get the forms from mailbox etc. or anyplace like that - $10. and then have a notary sign it with your dads consent - $30. then just fax to the docs then they will give you info