The Development of an Instrument to Carry out Clinical Interviews Easily as Well as Medical Recommendations in Nahuatl in Mexico

Abstract

T his document shows the mechanism and logic which were used to develop the communicative instrument. This instrument will facilitate the communication between the health personnel and the Nahuatl population in Mexico. Using this instrument, clinical interviews, as well as medical recommendations may be carried out despite the lack of knowledge of the Nahuatl language. The instrument was developed taking in consideration that Nahuatl is a tone language in comparison with Spanish grammar. Regarding phonetics, it can be read since it shares the same alphabet. The knowledge of this language was required to decide the use of the polite language instead of the reverential language which is more complicated. This document is based on the field research, the clinical interviews done by the internists, as well as the clinical experience of doctors who were responsible for the medical recommendations. Both the clinical interview and the medical recommendations are presented for the application as well as additional documents such as dictionaries and compendiums.