"If you restrain a resident, you actually see some desperation," Snyder says. "They experience some anguish. You kind of break their spirit. They give up. "
When she joined the staff of the Thornwald Home in Carlisle, Pa., 15 years ago, the facility sometimes used physical restraints on the elderly residents to keep them in their chairs or from wandering the halls. Staff and family members believed restraints made the residents safer.
Snyder knew that wasn't correct. "Statistics have shown there have actually been deaths from (the use of) restraints," she says. "That is definitely far worse than if they fall."
Now, none of Thornwald's 83 residents are in restraints, reflecting both Snyder's efforts and a nationwide push to reduce the practice. Nursing homes immobilize 5.5% of their residents with physical restraints on average, about a quarter as many as they did in 1991, a USA TODAY analysis of nursing homes' self-reported data to Medicare shows.
1 comment:
I noticed your blog and was interested in seeing if you would like to link to mine and vice versa as we both write about aging issues. .
My blog: http://anthonyssong.blogspot.com/
In short I am a health care expert that fell into a mission for seniors. That manifests in many ways but at the end of the day my goal is two fold – assure respect and dignity of our elders and advocate for people to learn about and make decisions about aging issues earlier in life.
Look forward to your reply.
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