The consumer is left to digest all of this medical information with limited cognitive resources. One of Casella's patients misinterpreted her lab results, mistaking the amount of her viral load by 100,000. She, and many other patients like her, could have benefited from a concrete, simplified version of the information. In the meantime, he uses examples from his own experience as an HIV-positive man with his clients. From a counseling perspective many indigenous counselors find that using their own experiences as HIV-positive persons is helpful in putting clients at ease.
Information overload is complicated further by confusion regarding the information.
Since many clients are in denial about the seriousness of their condition, they are not informed consumers about their health care. They are an easy sell for alternative remedies and treatments such as teas, herbs, mega-vitamin therapies, etc. I have to help them unpack and sort the fiction from a set of facts which are changing every day. I have to keep up with what is out there. Even I'm confused sometimes.