Only responding to condescension?

I had something of a strange insight last night at work, and I thought I’d try to get some opinions on this.

I work the midnight shift (10 pm to 6 am) at a nursing home as a Certified Nursing Assistant.

Last night was a fairly usual night, and one of the residents who suffers from very intense anxiety was significantly more anxious than usual.  She came out to where the aids and nurse sit in between doing our jobs and started to ask me when Sarah (the nurse) was going to give her her nebulizer treatment.  As Sarah was sitting right there, I told this lady that Sarah would be in shortly, so she should go sit down in her room to get ready.  She asked again a couple times if Sarah would be in soon.  I said yes, and finally on the third time of her saying, “Is Sarah going to be in to give me my neb soon?”  I finally said, “<insert resident name here>,. . . Sarah. . . will. . . be. . . in. . . in. . . just. . . a. . . couple. . . minutes. . .to. . . give. . .you. . . your. . . neb.”  As the words were coming out of my mouth I felt like a total jerk.  Like I was being condescending, etc.  However, while my talking to her reasonably she didn’t respond, except to become more anxious.  I felt like it took me being a complete bitch to get her to sit down and become calm enough to actually be helped.

This isn’t the first time his has happened, but last night I began to wonder.  Are older women, like this lady, so used to being patronized by the people in their lives that it actually does not compute when people try to talk to them reasonably?  As I said, this isn’t the only time, or the only woman, that this has happened for.

So, what are your thoughts, if any, on phenomenon like this?